The proposed overhaul aims to reduce the administrative burden on industry and public authorities, by simplifying and clarifying the current rules. This entails recasting and merging seven EU directives, including IPPC, into one. The MEP guiding this proposal through Parliament is Holger Krahmer (ALDE, DE)
Introduction of emission limit values - the European Safety Net
The Parliament agreed in principle to more stringent emission limit values proposed by the Commission for specific categories of combustion plants and for pollutants such as SO2, NOx, dust and CO. However, to improve flexibility, MEPs advocate changing the procedure for setting these limits and eventual further limits.
MEPs say that to reduce widespread recourse to exemptions, which lead to market distortions, some minimum emission limit values, which cannot be exceeded in any way, must be set by the Commission, using the comitology procedure. According to the rapporteur, these requirements will "form a European safety network whose rules may not be breached by any installation".
At the same time, to give the authorities that grant permits more flexibility, MEPs say that emission limits laid down for individual installations must be based on best available techniques, but adaptable to take account of local circumstances.
Including medium-sized combustion plants, excluding those used least
The scope of the recast legislation (IPPC directive plus six more specific ones) correspondents more or less to the one of the current directives. It covers different industry sectors from metals, chemicals and paper to processed food, oil refineries and large-scale pig and poultry farms. Covered are as well combustion plants, waste incineration plants, waste co-incineration plants and installations producing titanium dioxide. MEPs broadly agree with a Commission proposal to bring medium-sized combustion plants (between 20 and 50 MW), within the rules but want to exclude installations (below 50 MW) which operate for no more than 500 hours /year.
MEPs also changed the annexes, which set specific permit conditions for types of industrial activity. Amendments seeking to insert more or less stringent values were not adopted except for one amendment including an exception for waste gases, but several amendments that were adopted make changes affecting specific industries to which emission limits apply.
Exception for hospitals
The plenary adopted an amendment calling for a calculation of only the normal running capacity of combustion plants used in hospitals. Specifically, when calculating the total rated thermal input of installations, for combustion plants used in healthcare facilities only the normal running capacity shall be included for the purposes of this calculation. With this amendment, MEPs seek to recognise the need for significant standby capacity in hospitals.
On poultry
MEPs reject the Commissions proposal to widen the directives scope concerning intensive rearing of poultry and to make a differentiation between different poultry species. MEPs want only industries with 40 000 places for poultry to be covered by the legislation, as it is the case at the moment.
Reducing the administrative burden and better informing the public
Other amendments inserted by the plenary aim to reduce administrative burdens, relax rules on reporting and inspections, and improve the information to the public.
Inadmissible amendments on CO2 Emission Limit Value
In plenary vote, several amendments were deemed non-admissible under the EP rules of procedure. This decision concerned inter alia amendments, put forward by several MEPs, to introduce a carbon dioxide emission limit value for large electricity-generating combustion installations.
