Brussels, 10/01/2001 (Agence Europe) - The Parliament and the Council managed, on Monday evening in Brussels, to agree in conciliation on a recommendation relating to the minimum criteria to be fulfilled when conducting environmental inspections in the Member States. The buffer date for reaching an agreement was 18 January. This recommendation to the Member States establishes guidelines for inspections made in industrial installations or on any site where the activities, regulated by Community legislation, are likely to entail polluting emissions, and which must, because of this, be the subject of authorisation, permits or license. The aim of this Community text is to contribute to the coherent implementation of Community law, the follow up of inspections made and the publicity made to their results.
The conciliation procedure was on the form and the legal scope of the text to be adopted - directive or simple recommendation. The less rigorous solution finally won the day. Parliament rapporteur Caroline Jackson (British Conservative), Chair of the Committee on the Environment, and the Parliament as a whole fought to the bitter end for a binding text in order to achieve the objectives, but which would have left the Member States the freedom to choose the means of implementation. The aim of the rapporteur, supported by Parliament in both first and in second reading, was in fact to obtain a change in the recommendation initially on the table, so that the Community environment law might be applied in a uniform way in all Member States. The Parliament agreed to renounce this requirement against the assurance that a report on the implementation of this directive recommendation be published in the Official Journal in two years' time and that, in the case of insufficient results in all Member States, the Commission would take measures by 2003 at the very latest, without excluding the transformation of the directive recommendation.
MEPs from the EPP-ED group who took part in the conciliation cautioned that the Parliament would step up its vigilance to ensure that the Member States do really assume their responsibilities. Speaking on behalf of the Council, Swedish Environment Minister Kjelle Larsson welcomed the success of this conciliation procedure that she chaired for the first time.