To recall, operators of industrial installations in the EU are required to submit an application to an environmental permit to the competent authorities in the EU Member States. Such permits are based on Best Available Techniques (BATs), which are decide at EU level, and include defined limit values for atmospheric pollutants such as sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and dust.
The draft directive on integrated pollution prevention and control (IPPC Directive) sets stricter operational conditions, technical requirements and emission limit values for industrial plants. Under the Commission’s proposal about 52,000 industrial plants, in the EU, will be required to meet new minimum emissions standards on several pollutants. Obviously, businesses are concerned that the Commission proposal requiring stricter pollution standards for industrial installations may force power stations as well as other plants to close down. Moreover, it entails excessive costs to industry.
Last March, the European Parliament approved with amendments the Commission’s proposal and the Council has recently adopted its common position at first reading but it could not accept half of the European Parliament’s amendments.
The Commission has proposed to widener the scope of the Directive by lowering some thresholds. However, the Council could not agree with the Commission's view that the costs would justify the benefits of extending the scope of the directive, particularly, to combustion plants and intensive farming.
The European Parliament in order to restrain the widespread recourse to exemptions, has therefore proposed that the Commission use the comitology procedure to set legally binding new minimum emission limit values for pollutants such as SO2, N0x and dust that no installation can exceed. The Council could not accept such amendment as it considers that the ordinary legislative procedure (co-decision procedure) is the procedure to follow for the amendment of emission limit values. In general, Member States are concerned that such idea could increase the administrative burden.
The most controversial issue of the proposal has been the requirements for large combustion plants. The Commission has proposed to bring emissions of existing large combustion plants (including power plants) into line with current Best Available Techniques (BAT) by 2016 whereas several Member States, including the UK, have requested 2020. According to the Government’s initial impact assessment the annual cost of the requirements for large combustion plants will vary between £16.4–16.8 million for the least stringent to £66.8–67.2 million for the most. The Minister for Sustainable Development, Climate Change Adaptation and Air Quality at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Lord Hunt, has said to the European Scrutiny Committee if the Council agrees to less stricter requirements the proposal overall cost could be reduced from around £944 million to about £224 million, of which around £214 million would concern the requirements for large combustion plants.
The Council has agreed to apply current BAT within two years after the entry into force of the directive to new LCPs therefore earlier than proposed by the Commission.
Taking into account the costs and the risks to the security of energy supply, the Council has amended the Commission’s proposal introducing several derogations for combustion plants. The Council decided that the new limit values would be applicable to existing LCPs from 2016 however it has agreed on a transition period. Hence, the UK as well as Poland and other central European Member States were able to delay the application of the directive's provisions for large combustion plants until 2020. Under the Council common position Member States may define “'transitional national plan for certain combustion plants by applying decreasing annual ceilings for total emissions from participating plants between 2016 and 2020”, “until 2023, for plants which will operate for a limited time before closure” and “until 2019, for plants which are part of small isolated systems.” However, the European Parliament is set to oppose to such amendment to the Commission proposal.
The Council’s common position now goes to the European Parliament for a second reading. It remains to be seen what will come out from the closed-doors ‘trialogue’ legislative negotiations. The European Parliament is keen for the directive to introduce stricter emission limits. The ludicrous situation is that the Government cannot guarantee Britain's energy security. The Government will try to reduce the impact of the Directive on industrial emissions but it cannot veto the proposal. Moreover, it would not be able to change the current EU laws, in fact, it is obliged to apply them otherwise it will be taken again to the ECJ. In fact, under the large combustion plants directive, nine UK’s power stations are set to close in 2015.
