Pollution Prevention and Control: Commission decides to pursue infringement procedures against United Kingdom, Greece, Spain, Finland, Luxembourg, Germany and Belgium

European Union

 The European Commission has decided to refer the United Kingdom, Greece, 
      Spain and Finland to the European Court of Justice for not implementing 
      Directive on Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC). It has 
      also decided to request Luxembourg, Germany and Belgium to notify measures 
      to implement the IPPC Directive within two months. Should the Member 
      States concerned not respond to the requests, which takes the form of a 
      Reasoned Opinion (second stage of infringement procedures under Article 
      226 of the EC Treaty), the Commission may decide to refer these Member 
      States to the Court. 

      Commenting on the decisions Environment Commissioner Margot Wallström 
      said: "The IPPC Directive is a significant advance in environmental 
      regulation of polluting industrial activities. I urge Member States who 
      are late with their national laws to make every effort to complete the 
      necessary legislative work as soon as possible." 

      The IPPC Directive (Council Directive 96/61/EC concerning integrated 
      pollution prevention and control) is one of the Community's major pieces 
      of recent environmental legislation. The Directive applies to a 
      significant number of potentially polluting industrial activities, 
      covering, for example, energy industries, production and processing of 
      metals, mineral and chemical industries, waste management facilities and 
      certain agri-food facilities. It seeks to prevent or reduce pollution of 
      the air, water and land through a comprehensive permitting system that 
      looks at all of these environmental media together. In addition, it covers 
      the generation of waste, and the use of energy in these industries. This 
      approach stands in contrast to the approach of older environmental 
      legislation that attempted to regulate single environmental media in 
      isolation. 

      The deadline for adopting and sending to the Commission the necessary 
      national legislation to give effect to the Directive was 30 October 1999. 
      The United Kingdom has sent adopted legislation for England, Wales and 
      Scotland and a draft text for Gibraltar, but the Commission is still 
      waiting to receive adopted measures for Northern Ireland and Gibraltar. 
      Finland has sent measures for the Finnish mainland but not for the 
      province of Åland. The Commission has received no measures from Greece. 
      The measures notified by Luxembourg comprise partial transposing measures 
      as well as draft legislation not yet adopted. Germany and Spain too have 
      sent draft measures but their adoption is not foreseen before later in 
      2001. In the case of Belgium, adopted measures are missing for Wallonia. 
      The decisions in these cases are an example of the Commission's standard 
      practice of pursuing concerted legal action where Member States have 
      failed to implement a Directive before the deadline agreed by the Council 
      of Ministers.