| 17.12.2010 | EN | Official Journal of the European Union | L 334/17 |
DIRECTIVE 2010/75/EU OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL
of 24 November 2010
on industrial emissions (integrated pollution prevention and control)
(Recast)
(Text with EEA relevance)
THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,
Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, and in particular Article 192(1) thereof,
Having regard to the proposal from the European Commission,
Having regard to the opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee (1),
Having regard to the opinion of the Committee of the Regions (2),
Acting in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure (3),
Whereas:
| (1) | A number of substantial changes are to be made to Council Directive 78/176/EEC of 20 February 1978 on waste from the titanium dioxide industry (4), Council Directive 82/883/EEC of 3 December 1982 on procedures for the surveillance and monitoring of environments concerned by waste from the titanium dioxide industry (5), Council Directive 92/112/EEC of 15 December 1992 on procedures for harmonising the programmes for the reduction and eventual elimination of pollution caused by waste from the titanium dioxide industry (6), Council Directive 1999/13/EC of 11 March 1999 on the limitation of emissions of volatile organic compounds due to the use of organic solvents in certain activities and installations (7), Directive 2000/76/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 4 December 2000 on the incineration of waste (8), Directive 2001/80/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2001 on the limitation of emissions of certain pollutants into the air from large combustion plants (9) and Directive 2008/1/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 January 2008 concerning integrated pollution prevention and control (10). In the interests of clarity, those Directives should be recast. |
| (2) | In order to prevent, reduce and as far as possible eliminate pollution arising from industrial activities in compliance with the ‘polluter pays’ principle and the principle of pollution prevention, it is necessary to establish a general framework for the control of the main industrial activities, giving priority to intervention at source, ensuring prudent management of natural resources and taking into account, when necessary, the economic situation and specific local characteristics of the place in which the industrial activity is taking place. |
| (3) | Different approaches to controlling emissions into air, water or soil separately may encourage the shifting of pollution from one environmental medium to another rather than protecting the environment as a whole. It is, therefore, appropriate to provide for an integrated approach to prevention and control of emissions into air, water and soil, to waste management, to energy efficiency and to accident prevention. Such an approach will also contribute to the achievement of a level playing field in the Union by aligning environmental performance requirements for industrial installations. |
| (4) | It is appropriate to revise the legislation relating to industrial installations in order to simplify and clarify the existing provisions, reduce unnecessary administrative burden and implement the conclusions of the Commission Communications of 21 September 2005 on the Thematic Strategy on Air Pollution (hereinafter the Thematic Strategy on Air Pollution), of 22 September 2006 on the Thematic Strategy for Soil Protection and of 21 December 2005 on the Thematic Strategy on the Prevention and Recycling of Waste adopted as a follow-up to Decision No 1600/2002/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 July 2002 laying down the Sixth Community Environment Action Programme (11). Those Communications set objectives to protect human health and the environment which cannot be met without further reductions in emissions arising from industrial activities. |
| (5) | In order to ensure the prevention and control of pollution, each installation should operate only if it holds a permit or, in the case of certain installations and activities using organic solvents, only if it holds a permit or is registered. |
| (6) | It is for Member States to determine the approach for assigning responsibilities to operators of installations provided that compliance with this Directive is ensured. Member States may choose to grant a permit to one responsible operator for each installation or to specify the responsibility amongst several operators of different parts of an installation. Where its current legal system provides for only one responsible operator for each installation, a Member State may decide to retain this system. |
| (7) | In order to facilitate the granting of permits, Member States should be able to set requirements for certain categories of installations in general binding rules. |
| (8) | It is important to prevent accidents and incidents and limit their consequences. Liability regarding the environmental consequences of accidents and incidents is a matter for relevant national law and, where applicable, other relevant Union law. |
| (9) | In order to avoid duplication of regulation, the permit for an installation covered by Directive 2003/87/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 October 2003 establishing a scheme for greenhouse gas emission allowance trading within the Community (12) should not include an emission limit value for direct emissions of the greenhouse gases specified in Annex I to that Directive except where it is necessary to ensure that no significant local pollution is caused or where an installation is excluded from that scheme. |
| (10) | In accordance with Article 193 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), this Directive does not prevent Member States from maintaining or introducing more stringent protective measures, for example greenhouse gas emission requirements, provided that such measures are compatible with the Treaties and the Commission has been notified. |
| (11) | Operators should submit permit applications containing the information necessary for the competent authority to set permit conditions. Operators should be able to use information resulting from the application of Council Directive 85/337/EEC of 27 June 1985 on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment (13) and of Council Directive 96/82/EC of 9 December 1996 on the control of major-accident hazards involving dangerous substances (14) when submitting permit applications. |
| (12) | The permit should include all the measures necessary to achieve a high level of protection of the environment as a whole and to ensure that the installation is operated in accordance with the general principles governing the basic obligations of the operator. The permit should also include emission limit values for polluting substances, or equivalent parameters or technical measures, appropriate requirements to protect the soil and groundwater and monitoring requirements. Permit conditions should be set on the basis of best available techniques. |
| (13) | In order to determine best available techniques and to limit imbalances in the Union as regards the level of emissions from industrial activities, reference documents for best available techniques (hereinafter BAT reference documents’) should be drawn up, reviewed and, where necessary, updated through an exchange of information with stakeholders and the key elements of BAT reference documents (hereinafter BAT conclusions’) adopted through committee procedure. In this respect, the Commission should, through committee procedure, establish guidance on the collection of data, on the elaboration of BAT reference documents and on their quality assurance. BAT conclusions should be the reference for setting permit conditions. They can be supplemented by other sources. The Commission should aim to update BAT reference documents not later than 8 years after the publication of the previous version. |
| (14) | In order to ensure an effective and active exchange of information resulting in high-quality BAT reference documents, the Commission should establish a forum that functions in a transparent manner. Practical arrangements for the exchange of information and the accessibility of BAT reference documents should be laid down, in particular to ensure that Member States and stakeholders provide data of sufficient quality and quantity based on established guidance to enable the determination of best available techniques and emerging techniques. |
| (15) | It is important to provide sufficient flexibility to competent authorities to set emission limit values that ensure that, under normal operating conditions, emissions do not exceed the emission levels associated with the best available techniques. To this end, the competent authority may set emission limits that differ from the emission levels associated with the best available techniques in terms of the values, periods of time and reference conditions applied, so long as it can be demonstrated, through the results of emission monitoring, that emissions have not exceeded the emission levels associated with the best available techniques. Compliance with the emission limit values that are set in permits results in emissions below those emission limit values. |
| (16) | In order to take into account certain specific circumstances where the application of emission levels associated with the best available techniques would lead to disproportionately high costs compared to the environmental benefits, competent authorities should be able to set emission limit values deviating from those levels. Such |
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