Brussels, 22/01/2001 (Agence Europe) - The Commission decided to cross a line in the infringement proceedings engaged against several Member States for non-respect of the Community legislation relating to integrated pollution prevention and control (Directive 96/61/EEC, said IPPC Directive). The United Kingdom, Greece, Spain and Finland will be the object of an appeal before the European Court of Justice (third stage in the procedure). Luxembourg, Germany and Belgium will receive a motivated opinion (second stage in the procedure) requiring from them to put their national legislation in accordance with the Directive within two months. Below is the nature of the infringements committed:
United Kingdom: The Commission still awaits the notification of transposition measures for Northern Ireland and Gibraltar; Greece: this Member State has not notified any measure; Finland: the transposition measures for the province of Aland have not been passed on; Luxembourg: this Member State has only notified partial transposition measures and draft legislative acts as yet not adopted; Germany and Spain: the measures notified should only be adopted in 2001 while the cut off date to do this was 30 October 1999; Belgium: this Member States has not adopted measures for the transposition for Wallonia.
The IPPC Directive covers a significant number of potentially polluting industrial activities, which must be submitted to a system of authorisation that takes into account both air, water and ground pollution, but also the production of waste and the use of energy in the industries concerned.