Influence the legislative process for the Revision of the Industrial Emissions Directive and the creation of the Industrial Emissions Portal, in particular to ensure that the local and regional dimension is taken into account.
The CoR Opinion on the Zero Pollution Action Plan already welcomed the revision of the Industrial Emissions Directive and included some considerations.
The Rapporteur of the European Parliament published the Draft Report on 14/11/2022.
The ENVE secretariat can details on the elements coherent with the CoR opinion.
In particular the Draft Report includes two amendments that substantially reflects the main elements of two proposals of the CoR opinion on:
Access to Justice: Inclusion of sub-national public authorities in the provisions on access to justice (ENVI Amendment 85).
Compensation for local communities: Using funding from penalties to compensate for damage caused to local communities, including compensation he social consequences of ending economic activities due to permit violations (ENVI Amendment 112).
An updated analysis will be provided after the vote in the ENVI Committee (indicatively in Aprl 2023).
THE EUROPEAN COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS
- reiterates its commitment to accelerating a fair and clean transition towards a climate-neutral and circular economy by 2050 that favours the regions of the European Union and leaves no people and no territory behind across the European Union; to this end, supports the revision of the Industrial Emissions Directive (IED), intended not only to help prevent and control pollution in order to better protect the environment and human health, but also to stimulate innovation, reward frontrunners and help level the playing field in the EU market;
- has reservations about the current wording of Article 15(3), namely on setting emission limit values (ELVs) at the strictest levels, as mentioned in the BAT conclusions;
- questions the wording of Article 15(3a) on environmental performance levels linked to the BAT. This requirement should be left to the discretion of the competent authorities after it has been demonstrated by means of a careful assessment that such a requirement would not lead to inconsistency between the permit conditions set elsewhere;
- strongly supports the "polluter pays" principle, agrees with the European Court of Auditors that the "polluter pays" principle should be clearly defined, and endorses strengthening the provisions concerning penalties and compensation; considers that penalties need to be effective, proportionate and dissuasive and that they need to take into account the full ownership structure of companies to ensure that they are imposed on the responsible parties;
- stresses that local and regional authorities have to deal with the environmental, health, social and economic impacts of pollution. Money from penalties and compensatory payments should also be used to help local and regional authorities cope with the consequences of these impacts;
- supports the extension of the IED to other sectors such as the beef sector; is concerned, however, by the administrative burden and costs and suggests considering measures providing financial support for businesses and local and regional authorities in this transition, taking into account in particular the social impact on small installations; calls on the co-legislators not to confine themselves to the livestock rearing threshold criterion alone;
- welcomes the long-term transformation plans; draws attention, however, to the fact that these plans should be indicative and produced at company level, not at the level of the operating site, and that disclosing them must not undermine industrial secrets.