EC on the limitation of emissions of volatile organic compounds due to the use of organic solvents in certain activities and installations - Main contents

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dossier	COM(2010)593 - Report from the Commission on the implementation of Directive 2008/1/EC concerning integrated pollution prevention and ...
document	COM(2010)593
date	October 25, 2010

Annex V. This includes the permit application and the details of the competent authority responsible for making the permitting decision. As in previous reporting cycles, Member States have indicated that cross-border co-operation has been limited. Eight Member States (Germany, Belgium, Italy, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, France and the Netherlands) report the use of these provisions, which concerned a small number of permits.

2.3 The Commission's IPPC implementation action plan

In its Communication 'Towards an improved policy on industrial emissions'[10] the Commission outlined an implementation plan addressing a number of key issues, including transposition and implementation by Member States and improving the BREF elaboration process. The summary table in Annex I shows that the action plan has now been almost fully implemented, largely through the IED.

With the coming into effect of the IED the Commission will devote its attention to supporting Member States in their efforts to fully transpose and implement that Directive. Some of the actions listed in Annex I will therefore continue in the context of the IED.

3. SED

The aim of the SED is to prevent or reduce the effects on human health and the environment of emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOC) into the air. In particular, it promotes the replacement of those solvents having the most serious health effects with potentially less harmful substitutes. The SED covers various activities involving the use of organic solvents, such as coating, degreasing, printing and ink manufacturing, and all installations falling within its scope were required to be authorised or registered by the end of October 2007.

The IED incorporates the provisions of this Directive.

3.1 Transposition of SED

Generally, Member States have transposed the Directive into their national legislation, although some problems were identified during the recent conformity checking exercise, in particular as regards the transposition of certain definitions, the monitoring requirements, the scope of the Directive and the emission limit values. The Commission will take into account the findings of this exercise when assisting Member States in the transposition phase of the IED.

3.2 Implementation of SED (2003-2007)

General implementation issues

The information provided by Member States gives no indication of any problems with the implementation of SED. Overall, Member States have implemented the provisions, measures and practices necessary to ensure compliance with the various aspects of the Directive. Compliance is ensured through monitoring and reporting obligations, as well as inspections and enforcement actions – in the form of both document checks and site visits – and further improved by supporting measures, such as training and the drafting of guidance for the competent authorities.

Some Member States have reported that implementation of SED in the dry cleaning sector is presenting some problems. The use of the solvent management plan, which is the key tool for assessing installation level compliance, is regarded by some competent authorities as too complicated for this sector and very hard to enforce, given the small size of most of the companies involved and the large number of installations. Several Member States have developed simplified approaches to implementation and compliance checking in line with the SED provisions, and the Commission is engaged in further discussions on this issue.

Installations covered

By the end of 2007, about 53,000 existing installations covered by the SED were operated in the EU-27 Member States. Following the amendment of the SED by Directive 2004/42/EC[11] (Deco-Paints Directive), which largely excluded vehicle refinishing from the scope of the SED, the number of existing installations in the Member States has decreased significantly. At the end of 2004 the majority of installations under the SED (within the EU-15 Member States) belonged to the vehicle refinishing sector (54%) and the dry cleaning sector (16%); however, at the end of 2007, dry-cleaning became the largest sector (with 39% of installations). Several Member States continued reporting on vehicle coating and refinishing under SED (27% of all installations reported), although this activity had been largely removed from its scope.

According to the data provided, only a small proportion of all existing installations were authorised or registered after 2003. This suggests that, prior to that date, many Member States already had legislation in place under which these installations had to be registered or authorised.

Use of the options for achieving emission reductions

The SED offers Member States two main possibilities for individual installations to achieve the required VOC emission reduction - they must comply either with emission limit values or with equivalent targets defined under a reduction scheme.

The information reported shows that in many Member States very few installations, if any, apply the reduction scheme option. In addition, several competent authorities seem to prefer the application of the emission limit values, because of the difficulties of assessing the equivalence between reduction schemes and the application of the limit values. This has been the case particularly in Member States where installations were regulated by emission limit values prior to the implementation of the SED.

The SED offers Member States a third option for compliance through the drawing up of a National Action Plan designed to achieve an overall reduction of VOC emissions equivalent to what would be achieved by applying the installation level approach. No Member State has implemented such a National Plan.

Derogations from emission limit values

The SED allows derogations from certain limit values where abatement measures are shown not to be economically and technically feasible. This can be an issue for activities such as shipbuilding and aircraft construction, which cannot be operated under contained conditions. Derogations were reported by about half of the Member States, but they accounted for less than 0.01% of the total number of installations. On the basis of the information received, it was not possible to assess the criteria used or the alternative conditions required.

Commission initiatives to promote implementation

Article 7 of the SED requires the Commission to ensure that an information exchange takes place on the use and substitution of organic solvents. To this end, the Commission has developed a web site providing access to guidance documents and good practices on the substitution of solvents[12], as well as activity-specific guidance documents[13]. The Commission has also worked in close co-operation with the Member States on providing answers to questions raised in relation to the implementation of the SED, in particular concerning the scope and the application of the reduction scheme.

Interaction with other EU legislation

The Deco-Paints Directive sets limit values for the VOC content of certain decorative paints and vehicle refinishing products. Several of those products are used within installations regulated under the SED. Consequently, the SED was amended to exclude this activity from its scope. As indicated above, this change has led to a drastic reduction in the number of installations covered by the SED. However, some Member States have chosen to maintain the SED requirements for this sector, as is explicitly allowed under the Deco-Paints Directive. The Deco-Paints Directive also exempts certain products from complying with the VOC limit values if these products are sold for exclusive use in an installation regulated under the SED.

The overlap between the two Directives has raised some concerns on the part of stakeholders and competent authorities. The Commission has attempted to clarify the situation and this issue has also been considered in the context of the review of the Deco-Paints Directive, on which the Commission will report in a separate Communication.

Some of the larger installations operating surface treatment activities are covered by both the SED and the IPPCD. These installations therefore have to be permitted, with the emission limit values to be set in the permits being based on BAT. In these cases, the limit values set in the SED will apply as minimum requirements. The interaction between the SED and the IPPCD has been given detailed consideration through the IED.

4. CONCLUDING REMARKS

IPPCD

The reports of the Member States on the implementation of the IPPCD have revealed a need for some countries to finalise the issuing of permits in order to ensure compliance with the Directive. In addition, case studies undertaken by the Commission have shown that permits are not based sufficiently on BAT. Furthermore, a number of other issues are also identified, such as the need for a more coherent inspection mechanism, the need to reduce administrative burden and the inability of the IPPCD to meet certain key policy objectives. These issues should for the most part be tackled through the IED.

SED

The reporting by Member States on the implementation of the SED prior to the final implementation deadline for existing installations revealed no major horizontal issues. Implementation of SED in the dry cleaning sector has presented some problems due to the specific features of the sector, but useful simplified approaches are being developed.

Future Directive on Industrial Emissions

The IED which is awaiting final adoption will merge seven Directives, including the IPPCD and the SED, into a single legal instrument. This will clarify the interaction between all these legal instruments and streamline many important provisions, including those related to monitoring and reporting.

The IED greatly strengthens the importance of BAT in the permitting procedure and addresses certain shortcomings of the IPPCD, in particular with regard to permit reviews and inspections. It is expected that implementation by Member States will become more effective once the IED enters into force.

Future action

There are still plans for another reporting cycle for the SED (2008-2010) and for the IPPCD (2009-2011) before the IED enters into force, and the Commission will continue to follow up the implementation of these two pieces of legislation. At the same time, the Commission will also prepare the ground for supporting and promoting the transposition and implementation of the IED by the Member States.

Annex I: Assessment of progress in implementing the Commission's 2007 IPPC Action Plan

Action | Assessment of progress |

1. Ensure full transposition of the Directive | IPPCD correctly transposed in 25 Member States. Cases against EE and LT remain open. |

2. Support Member States in cutting unnecessary administrative burdens | IED will reduce unnecessary burdens by €32 million per year. Continuation of work with the High Level Group of Independent Stakeholders on Administrative Burdens and with Member States to reduce national burdens. |

3. Support Member States in their implementation of the legislation | The Commission continued to communicate with those Member States that have problems in terms of issuing permits. Sharing of information on the implementation of IPPC across the EU and workshops held with Member States. |

4. Enhanced monitoring and compliance checks of the application of the legislation on industrial emissions | Ongoing Commission review of both total permits issued and the number of individual permits issued across a majority of Member States. Continued review of implementation in response to complaints from citizens and questions from the European Parliament. E-PRTR used to monitor and identify potential implementation issues. |

5. Improve data collection for review of BREFs and create stronger links with the Research Framework Programme | Publication of guidance on improving the collection and submission of data for the review of BREFs. Work with DG RTD with regard to links between BREFs and the Research Framework Programme. Enhanced status of emerging techniques in the context of IED. |

[1] References: COM (2003)354, COM (2005)540, COM (2007)843.

[2] This information has been summarized and analysed in more detail in two technical reports: http://circa.europa.eu/Public/irc/env/voc/library?l=/2006_reportspdf/_EN_1.0_&a=d and http://circa.europa.eu/Public/irc/env/voc/library?l=/implementation_2005-07/final12_marchpdf/_EN_1.0_&a=d

[3] IPPC: Decision 2006/194/EC, SED: Decision 2002/529/EC

[4] To learn more about ReportNet: http://www.eionet.europa.eu/reportnet

[5] To learn more about the Industrial Reporting Information System: http://iris.eionet.europa.eu/.

[6] The recast of the IPPC Directive comprises, beside the SED and the IPPC, the LCPD (2001/80/EC), the WID (2000/76/EC) and the 3 Directives on Titanium Dioxide (78/176/EEC, 82/883/EEC and 92/112/EEC)

[7] European Parliament agreed on a position at second reading on 7th July 2010: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P7-TA-2010-0267+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN&language=EN#top

[8] http://circa.europa.eu/Public/irc/env/ippc_rev/library. The third report of this exercise will be posted on the same webpage in the course of 2011.

[9] To learn more about the IPPC Bureau: http://eippcb.jrc.es/

[10] COM(2007) 843 final

[11] OJ L 143, 30.4.2004, p. 87–96

[12] http://ec.europa.eu/environment/air/pollutants/stationary/solvents/index.htm

[13] http://circa.europa.eu/Public/irc/env/voc/library?l=/guidance_documents/final_versions&vm=detailed&sb=Title.