Legal provisions of COM(1999)31 - Waste management statistics

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dossier COM(1999)31 - Waste management statistics.
document COM(1999)31 EN
date November 25, 2002


Contents

Article 1 - Objective

1. The objective of this Regulation is to establish a framework for the production of Community statistics on the generation, recovery and disposal of waste.

2. Member States and the Commission, within their respective fields of competence, shall produce Community statistics on the generation, recovery and disposal of waste, excluding radioactive waste, which is already covered by other legislation.

3. The statistics shall cover the following areas:

(a) Generation of waste according to Annex I;

(b) Recovery and disposal of waste according to Annex II;

(c) After the pilot studies according to Article 5: import and export of waste for which no data is collected under Council Regulation (EEC) No 259/93 of 1 February 1993 on the supervision and control of shipments of waste within, into and out of the European Community(7), in accordance with Annex III.

4. In compiling the statistics, Member States and the Commission shall observe the mainly substance-oriented statistical nomenclature, as set out in Annex III.

5. The Commission shall, in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 7(2), establish a table of equivalence between the statistical nomenclature of Annex III and the list of waste established by Commission Decision 2000/532/EC(8).

Article 2 - Definitions

For the purposes and within the framework of this Regulation:

(a) 'waste' shall mean any substance or object as defined in Article 1(a) of Council Directive 75/442/EEC of 15 July 1975 on waste(9);

(b) 'separately collected fractions of waste' shall mean household and similar waste, selectively collected in homogeneous fractions by public services, non-profit organisations and private enterprises acting in the field of organised waste collection;

(c) 'recycling' shall have the same meaning as in the definition given in Article 3(7) of European Parliament and Council Directive 94/62/EC of 20 December 1994 on packaging and packaging waste(10);

(d) 'recovery' shall mean any of the operations provided for in Annex II.B to Directive 75/442/EEC;

(e) 'disposal' shall mean any of the operations provided for in Annex II.A to Directive 75/442/EEC;

(f) 'recovery or disposal facility' shall mean a facility that requires a permit or registration pursuant to Articles 9, 10 or 11 of Directive 75/442/EC;

(g) 'hazardous waste' shall mean any waste as defined in Article 1(4) of Council Directive 91/689/EEC of 12 December 1991 on hazardous waste(11);

(h) 'non-hazardous waste' shall mean waste which is not covered by point (g);

(i) 'incineration' shall mean thermal treatment of waste in an incineration plant as defined in Article 3(4) or a co-incineration plant as defined in Article 3(5) of Directive 2000/76/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 4 December 2000 on the incineration of waste(12);

(j) 'landfill' shall mean a waste disposal site as defined in Article 2(g) of Council Directive 1999/31/EC of 26 April 1999 on the landfill of waste(13);

(k) 'capacity of waste incineration facilities' shall mean the maximum capacity to incinerate waste, in tonnes per annum or in gigajoules;

(l) 'capacity of waste recycling facilities' shall mean the maximum capacity to recycle waste, in tonnes per annum;

(m) 'capacity of landfills' shall mean the remaining capacity (at the end of the data reference year) of the landfill facility to dispose of waste in the future, measured in cubic metres;

(n) 'capacity of other disposal facilities' shall mean the capacity of the facility to dispose of waste, measured in tonnes per annum.

Article 3 - Collection of data

1. Member States shall, whilst complying with conditions as to quality and accuracy to be defined in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 7(2), acquire the data necessary for the specification of the characteristics listed in Annexes I and II by means either of:

- surveys,

- administrative or other sources, such as the reporting obligations under Community legislation on waste management,

- statistical estimation procedures on the basis of samples or waste-related estimators, or

- a combination of these means.

In order to reduce response burdens, the national authorities and the Commission shall, subject to the limits and the conditions fixed by each Member State and by the Commission in their respective fields of competence, have access to administrative data sources.

2. In order to reduce the administrative burden on small enterprises, enterprises of less than 10 employees shall be excluded from surveys, unless they contribute significantly to the generation of waste.

3. Member States shall produce statistical results, following the breakdown set out in Annexes I and II.

4. The exclusion referred to in paragraph 2 must be consistent with the coverage and quality objectives as referred to in Section 7(1) of Annexes I and II.

5. Member States shall transmit the results, including confidential data, to Eurostat in an appropriate format and within a set period of time from the end of the respective reference periods, as laid down in Annexes I and II.

6. The treatment of confidential data and the transmission of such data as provided for in paragraph 5 shall be carried out in accordance with the existing Community provisions governing statistical confidentiality.

Article 4 - Transitional period

1. During a transitional period the Commission may, at the request of a Member State and in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 7(2), grant derogations from the provisions of Section 5 of Annexes I and II. This transitional period may not exceed:

(a) two years after the entry into force of this Regulation, for the production of results relating to Section 8(1)(1), Item 16 (Services activities) of Annex I and to Section 8(2) of Annex II;

(b) three years after the entry into force of this Regulation, for the production of results relating to Section 8(1)(1), Items 1 (Agriculture, hunting and forestry) and 2 (Fisheries) of Annex I.

2. The derogations referred to in paragraph 1 can be granted to individual Member States only for the data of the first reference year.

3. The Commission shall draw up a programme for pilot studies on waste from the economic activities referred to in paragraph 1(b) to be carried out by the Member States. The pilot studies shall aim to develop a methodology to obtain regular data which shall be governed by the principles of Community statistics, as laid down in Article 10 of Regulation (EC) No 322/97.

The Commission shall finance up to 100 % of the costs for conducting the pilot studies. On the basis of the conclusions of the pilot studies, the Commission shall adopt the necessary implementing measures in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 7(2).

Article 5 - Import and export of waste

1. The Commission shall draw up a programme for pilot studies on the import and export of waste to be carried out by Member States. The pilot studies shall aim at developing a methodology to obtain regular data which shall be governed by the principles of Community statistics, as laid down in Article 10 of Regulation (EC) No 322/97.

2. The Commission programme for pilot studies shall be consistent with the contents of Annexes I and II, particularly the aspects related to the scope and coverage of wastes, waste categories for the classification of waste, reference years and periodicity, taking into account the reporting obligations under Regulation (EEC) No 259/93.

3. The Commission shall finance up to 100 % of the costs for conducting the pilot studies.

4. On the basis of the conclusions of the pilot studies, the Commission shall inform the European Parliament and the Council of the possibilities of compiling statistics for the activities and characteristics covered by the pilot studies for import and export of waste. The Commission shall adopt the necessary implementation measures in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 7(2).

5. The pilot studies shall be conducted at the latest within three years after the entry into force of this Regulation.

Article 6 - Implementation measures

The measures necessary for the implementation of this Regulation, shall be adopted in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 7(2). These shall include measures:

(a) for adjustment to economic and technical developments in the collection and statistical processing of data, as well as the processing and the transmission of results;

(b) for adaptation of the specifications listed in Annexes I, II and III;

(c) for the production of results in accordance with Article 3(2), (3) and (4), taking into account the economic structures and technical conditions in a Member State; such measures may allow an individual Member State not to report certain items in the breakdown, provided the impact on the quality of the statistics is proven to be limited. In all cases where exemptions are given, the total amount of waste for each item listed in sections 2(1) and 8(1) of Annex I shall be compiled;

(d) for the definition of the proper quality evaluation criteria and the contents of the quality reports as referred to in Section 7 of Annexes I and II;

(e) for setting out the appropriate format for the transmission of results by Member States within two years from the date of entry into force of this Regulation;

(f) for compiling the list for granting transitional periods and derogations to Member States, as specified in Article 4;

(g) for implementation of the results of the pilot studies, as specified in Article 4(3) and Article 5(1).

Article 7 - Committee procedure

1. The Commission shall be assisted by the Statistical Programme Committee established by Council Decision 89/382/EEC, Euratom(14).

2. Where reference is made to this paragraph, Articles 5 and 7 of Decision 1999/468/EC shall apply, having regard to the provisions of Article 8 thereof.

The period laid down in Article 5(6) of Decision 1999/468/EC shall be set at three months.

3. The Committee shall adopt its rules of procedure.

4. The Commission shall transmit to the Committee set up by Directive 75/442/EEC the draft measures that it intends to submit to the Statistical Programme Committee.

Article 8 - Report

1. The Commission shall, within five years after the date of entry into force of this Regulation and every three years thereafter, submit a report to the European Parliament and the Council on the statistics compiled pursuant to this Regulation and in particular on their quality and the burden on businesses.

2. The Commission shall, within two years after the date of entry into force of this Regulation, submit to the European Parliament and the Council a proposal abolishing overlapping reporting obligations.

3. The Commission shall, within two years after the entry into force of this Regulation, submit to the European Parliament and the Council a report on the progress of the pilot studies referred to in Article 4(3) and Article 5(1). If necessary, it shall propose revisions of the pilot studies, to be decided upon in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 7(2).

Article 9 - Entry into force

This Regulation shall enter into force on the twentieth day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Communities.


This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.