COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT pursuant to the second subparagraph of Article 251 (2) of the EC Treaty concerning the Common Position of the Council on the Amended Proposal for a European Parliament and Council Regulation allowing voluntary participation by organisations in a Community eco-management and audit scheme(EMAS)

COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT pursuant to the second subparagraph of Article 251 (2) of the EC Treaty concerning the

Common Position of the Council on the Amended Proposal for a European Parliament and Council Regulation allowing voluntary participation by organisations in a Community eco-management and audit scheme (EMAS)

1. Procedure

The Proposal (COM(1998) 622 final) was forwarded to the Council on 3 November 1998 and to the European Parliament on 11 December 1998 in accordance with the co-operation procedure under Article 130 S (1) of the Treaty.

The European Parliament gave its opinion in a first reading on 15 April 1999 and the Economic and Social Affairs Committee in its Plenary of 26 May 1999.

Following the opinion of the European Parliament and pursuant to Article 250 (2) of the Treaty the Commission adopted an Amended Proposal (COM(1999) 313 final) and forwarded its Amended Proposal to the Council on 23 June 1999.

On 28 February 2000 the Member States in Council agreed unanimously upon the Common Position.

2. Aim of the Regulation

The objective of the Proposal is to improve the contribution of EMAS to the protection of the environment through the revision of the existing Council Regulation (EEC) No. 1836/93 of 29 June 1993.

The Proposal extends EMAS to all economic sectors providing them with an instrument to continually improve their environmental performance.

The Proposal calls explicitly for the involvement of employees as one means to achieve this continuous improvement of environmental performance.

The compatibility between EMAS and the international standard EN ISO 14001 is also strengthened by incorporating EN ISO 14001 as the environmental management system element of EMAS. This allows the elements where EMAS goes further than EN ISO 14001 to be clearly defined, namely compliance with environmental legislation, the improvement of environmental performance, external communication and employee involvement.

The Proposal promotes the participation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in EMAS by appropriate support mechanisms.

The Proposal provides for increased visibility of participation in EMAS for businesses as well as for the credibility and consistency at Community level of the scheme.

3. Commission Comments

A. Parliamentary Amendments accepted by the Commission in the Amended Proposal which have been incorporated totally or partially in the Common Position

The Commission accepted totally, partially or in principle eighteen of the fifty-nine amendments proposed by the European Parliament in the first reading. They were incorporated into the Amended Proposal COM(1999) 313 final of 23 June 1999.

Fifteen of these amendments have been incorporated in the Common Position totally, partially or in principle.

Due to the process of redrafting, in some instances it is the principle of the amendment and not the exact wording which has been retained in the Common Position.

The Commission considers that the Common Position does not alter the basic technical approach and aims of the Proposal whilst some aspects have been clarified or strengthened.

In particular:

- Amendment 1 has been incorporated in Recital 7;

- Amendment 3 has been incorporated in Recital 13 however the words "and steadily improve" and "retraining" have been omitted;

- Amendment 60 has been covered in Recital 18;

- Amendment 8 has been incorporated by changing the reference to "stakeholders" to "interested parties" (for compatibility with EN ISO 14001) and providing a definition of interested parties under Article 2 p);

- Amendments 11, 20 and 21 have been incorporated by adding the words "whether national regional or local" to the definition of competent body given in Article 2 u);

- Amendment 18 has been covered in the wording of Article 4 (7);

- Amendment 24 has been covered in Article 8;

- Amendment 26 third bullet has been included in Article 11 (1);

- Amendment 34 has been covered in Annex IA;

- Amendment 42 is covered in Annex III 3.2;

- Amendment 43 is covered in the last sentence of Annex III 3.1;

- Amendment 45 has been incorporated into Annex III 3.5;

- Amendment 48 is covered in the wording of Annex III 3.3.

B. Parliamentary amendments accepted by the Commission in the Amended Proposal, but not included in the Common Position

Amendment 4 and amendment 5 have not been accepted in the recital of the Common Position.

Amendment 26 fourth bullet and amendment 27 have not been incorporated into the Common Position.

C. Changes made by the Council to the Amended Proposal

Article 1 (2) d) now reads "The active involvement, including appropriate training of employees" which may address the concerns of Amendment 7 (2) d) of the European Parliament.

The definition of environmental policy now includes a commitment to continual improvement of environmental performance and states that it will provide a framework for setting and reviewing environmental targets and objectives.

The definition of environmental programme has been changed to bring it more into line with the principles of EN ISO 14001.

The definition of organisation has been changed to better encompass the concept of "site".

Article 2 now includes three new definitions:

- Continual improvement of environmental performance;

- Environmental performance;

- Prevention of Pollution.

In Article 3 (2) b) provision has been made to allow deviations from the yearly validation of environmental information through guidance documents. This may go some way to satisfying the requirements of amendment 16.

Article 4 now contains an amended point 7 which gives a clearer description of the efforts to harmonise the accreditation and supervision of environmental verifiers. Article 4 also has a requirement to make the report of the peer review publicly available.

Article 6 has, without changing the intent, been redrafted to make the conditions for registration, refusal of registration, suspension and deletion from the register more clear.

Article 8 has been redrafted to give more flexibility on the reporting of environmental information with regard to products, activities and services. The conditions under which organisations can use the logo for advertisements for activities, products and services will be laid down in guidance documents.

A new Article 10 has been created to cover the relationship with environmental legislation. This consists of the old Article 1 (3) and Article 10 (2). The intent is to show a relationship between these two concepts.

Article 11 introduces a new point 2 as follows:

"2. In order to encourage organisations' participation in EMAS the Commission and other institutions of the European Community as well as other public authorities at national level should consider, without prejudice to Community law, how the registration to EMAS may be taken into account when setting criteria for their procurement policies."

This may go some way towards addressing the points raised by amendment 26 (first two bullets and amendment 30).

Article 14 introduces the new comitology procedure agreed in Council.

Article 15 includes a new Point 2 (old Article 13) covering the adaptation of the Annexes by the Regulatory Committee. Annex V is excluded.

Article 17 now allows for sites registered under experimental applications (under Article 14 of EMAS I) outside of the industrial /manufacturing sector to be included in the registrations to EMAS II. It also provides for 6 months grace for sites to change from EMAS I to EMAS II.

Annex I B now includes a new Section 4 covering employee involvement. This may cover the requirements of amendment 36.

Annex III 3.2 f) now includes a requirement to report on performance against legal provisions with respect to significant environmental impacts which may address the concerns of amendment 41.

Annex V 5.2.1 now contains a requirement for verifiers to have a general understanding of the functioning of environmental management systems. It also requires verifiers to have quality management system to cover their work under this Regulation.

Annex VI 6.2 covers two new areas for direct environmental impacts :

- "risks of environmental accidents and impacts arising, or likely to arise, as consequences of incidents, accidents and potential emergency situations;

- effects on biodiversity".

In addition Annex VI now defines direct and indirect environmental impacts in terms of management control.

Annex VI 6.4, without changing the intent, has been changed to simplify the text.

Annex VII 7.2 has been simplified and issues which are covered elsewhere have been deleted.

Other changes represent minor editorial changes, however three changes have been made throughout the document :

- The word "shall" has been used as the word to indicate mandatory requirements;

- The word "stakeholders" has been replaced by the words "interested parties";

- Guidance documents are specified as being produced according to the comitology procedures.

Conclusion

The changes introduced by the Council in general act to clarify the text of the proposed Regulation, to enhance compatibility with EN ISO 14001 and to distinguish mandatory requirements by the use of the word shall. In areas of difficulty such as the use of the logo, the involvement of employees and the period between verifications the Council has proposed measures which introduce flexibility in the application of the Regulation. This flexibility will be achieved through the production of guidance documents. This flexibility will be necessary to ensure that the scheme can be applied in all sectors and in all sizes of business. The Commission therefore fully supports the Common Position.