EU Commission calls on GERMANY, AUSTRIA and SLOVENIA to improve their rules on pollution arising from industrial activities
The Commission is asking Germany, Austria and Slovenia to correctly enact into national law the EU rules on integrated prevention and control of pollution arising from industrial activities.
The Industrial Emissions Directive (Directive 2010/75/EU) lays down rules on activities which include the prevention or reduction of emissions into air, water and soil and the prevention of waste generation.
Germany has not correctly transposed certain provisions of the Directive. Among those, public participation is limited in certain regards, and provisions enabling competent authorities to set, in specific cases, less stringent emission limit values are not correctly transposed.
Slovenia has not correctly transposed certain provisions of the Directive. Among those, the condition of the equivalent level of protection of the environment as a whole is not enacted properly, and permit conditions that are installation-specific and resulting from an individual assessment are missing. This renders the scope of the Directive narrower than appropriate.
Austria has not correctly transposed a wide range of technical provisions, even if most of the transposition problems do not concern the whole of Austria but only certain sectors or certain Länder. Therefore, the Commission is sending letters of formal notice to all three countries.
They have four months to address the shortcomings identified by the Commission. In the absence of a satisfactory response, the Commission may decide to send a reasoned opinion.
Vivian Loonela
