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 ADOPTION OF A DIRECTIVE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL ON NATIONAL EMISSION CEILINGS FOR CERTAIN ATMOSPHERIC POLLUTANTS

1999/0067 (COD)

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 ADOPTION OF A DIRECTIVE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL ON NATIONAL EMISSION CEILINGS FOR CERTAIN ATMOSPHERIC POLLUTANTS

1. HISTORY OF THE FILE

- Date of transmission of the proposal to the European Parliament and Council: 14 July 1999 (COM(1999)125 final -1999/0067(COD))

- Date on which the European Parliament gave its opinion at first reading: 15 March 2000

- Date on which the Economic and Social Committee adopted its opinion: 15 November 1999

- Date on which the Committee of the Regions adopted its opinion: 14 June 2000

- Date of adoption of the common position: 7 November 2000

2. PURPOSE OF THE COMMISSION'S PROPOSAL

The Commission's proposal for a National Emission Ceilings (NEC) proposal would set upper limits for each Member State for the total emissions in 2010 of the four pollutants responsible for acidification, eutrophication and ground-level ozone pollution, but leave it largely to the Member States to decide which measures to take in order to comply.

The emission ceilings proposed by the Commission are designed to meet interim objectives for acidification that have already been agreed by Council and Parliament, plus proposed new objectives for ozone, in the lowest cost way for the Community as a whole. The pollutants concerned are transported in large quantities across national boundaries. Individual Member States could not in general meet the objectives within their territory by national action alone.

3. COMMENTS ON THE COMMON POSITION

3.1. General comments

Council agreed its Common Position as a part of a package which also included agreement on the proposal concerning Large Combustion Plants. In relation to this proposal, it accepted the environmental objectives for acidification and ozone proposed by the Commission and the date of 2010 for meeting those objectives. Council agreed also to further reductions in emissions beyond those included in the UNECE multi-pollutant multi-effect protocol which opened for signature last November in Gothenburg. The national emission ceilings in Annex I of the Common Position will, as a first step, take the Community two thirds of the way towards meeting its objective for acidification and over half way towards meeting its health objective for ozone. Council considered that a number of uncertainties needed to be reduced before the burden of bridging the remaining gap could be optimally shared out. Notable amongst these are the impact of enlargement, the way in which Member States will implement their climate change commitments and the extent to which emissions from shipping might be reduced. A review is planned for 2004 with the aim of agreeing the further action which would be needed to meet objectives in 2010.

3.2. Parliament's amendments accepted in full or part by the Commission and incorporated in the Common Position

Amendments 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 11 (part), 25, 12, and 13.

The Common Position takes account of Parliament's amendments 1 and 2 by including a new recital (16) referring to the need to tale account of the effects of any new Community legislation relating to relevant sources of emissions when implementation of the Directive is reviewed. Article 9.1.a. also reflects this. Recital 15 and Article 9.3. further state that the Commission will examine further the need for harmonised Community measures for the most relevant economic sectors and products contributing to acidification, eutrophication and ground level ozone.

Parliament's amendment 3 on the need to take into account progress in the accession candidate countries has been incorporated in full in Recital 13.

Amendment 8 on the need to take into account any subsequent modifications to emission ceilings has been incorporated in Article 4.1 with some rewording.

Amendment 9, which moves the interim environmental objectives of the proposal from Annex II of the original proposal to Article 5 has been fully incorporated. Definitions which were formerly footnotes to Annex II have been moved to Article 3, points 1 and 2. The former footnote to Annex II which referred to eutrophication has been incorporated in a footnote to Annex I.

The majority of Parliament's amendments dealing with reports and review are reflected in the Common Position. In relation to amendment 11, Article 9.1.c refers to measures in accession candidate countries and possible emission reductions in regions in he vicinity of the Community; a reference to aircraft emissions has been included in 9.1.d, new point 9.1 (ha) on transport has been included as 9.1.f. Amendment 25 on comparison of model results with measured data is reflected in 9.1 (m). The revised text of Article 9.3 takes into account amendment 12 (review).

A reference to ICAO has been included in Article 10 in accordance with Amendment 13.

3.3. Parliament's amendments not accepted by the Commission and not included in the Common Position

Amendments 30, 6, 7, 11 (part).

Parliament's amendment 30 would have set dates for meeting the long-term objectives of no exceedance of critical loads for acidification and of critical levels for ozone. There are no projections available for energy use, economic activity or emissions which would enable any forecast to be made of when these long-term objectives might be met. In addition, such forecasts would need to take into account emissions from outside the Community and even from outside Europe. These emissions will become more important as the Community's own emissions fall and as increased economic activity in other regions may lead to a growth in emissions there. The question of whether or not it is possible to set a date for meeting the long-term objectives will be re-examined in 2004, 2008 and 2012.

Amendment 6 would have included emissions from international maritime traffic and from aircraft beyond the landing and take-off cycle in national emission ceilings. This was not accepted because such emissions cannot be effectively controlled by national action nor even, in large part, by Community action. They must be primarily addressed by action in the International Maritime Organisation and the International Civil Aviation Organisation. Since the Commission adopted its proposal agreement has been reached in the IMO to declare the North Sea a sulphur dioxide control area and to require the use of low sulphur fuel. The Commission is now considering the possible impact of emissions from shipping in the Mediterranean and Black Sea, and whether it is possible to support action in the IMO with measures at EC level.

Amendment 7 would have revised the definition of "volatile organic compound" to be in line with that in the Solvents Directive. This was not accepted for two reasons. Firstly the definition in the Commission's proposal is identical to that in the Gothenburg protocol. It is very important that these two instruments remain technically compatible. Secondly, it is not necessary to specify the vapour pressure of compounds under conditions of use in this proposal for a Directive since it deals only with ambient conditions. It was necessary in the Solvents Directive since that Directive requires measurements of flue gases which can be extremely hot and can therefore include vaporised substances which would be solids in ambient conditions.

The part of amendment 11 which would have brought forward the dates of interim reviews by one year to 2003 and 2007 and of the final report to 2011 was not incorporated. Since Member States cannot compile emission inventories for a given year until after it has ended, the Commission would have no data on which to report before the dates given in the original proposal.

3.4. Differences between the Commission's proposal and the Common Position of the Council

The major difference between the Commission's proposal and the Common Position of the Council is in the numerical values of the national emission ceilings. Council has accepted the interim environmental objectives for 2010 which the emission ceilings proposed by the Commission were designed to meet. However, as far as emission ceilings were concerned Council felt that it was necessary to take a stepwise approach, committing now only to emission reductions which they felt certain of achieving, and making clear that the aim of review in 2004 would be to try to bridge the gap in the light of further information available by then.

Council has replaced the term "tropospheric ozone" by the term "ground-level ozone" throughout the proposal.

Article 11, dealing with comitology, has been revised to bring it in line with Decision 1999/468/EC.

3.5. New provisions introduced by the Council

Recitals

The recitals have been reordered and revised to reflect the stepwise approach to meeting interim environmental objectives. New recitals have been added, noting that all Member States have signed the Gothenburg protocol, and noting that measures should take account of the need to avoid excessive costs for any individual Member State.

Article 9

This Article has been reworded and re-ordered to make clear that a main aim of reviews in 2004 and 2008 will be to examine whether there is a gap between what is likely to be achieved by implementing emission ceilings and meeting environmental targets, and if so, to seek ways of bridging the gap.

The Commission can agree to these changes.

4. CONCLUSIONS

The Commission is able to accept the Common Position, which was agreed unanimously by Council.

The Commission considers that Council's commitment to meeting the interim objectives of the proposal by 2010 has been clearly signalled by its acceptance of Parliament's amendment moving those objectives from an Annex to Article 5. The Commission recognises that there are important uncertainties which have implications for emission ceilings and that Member States have made considerable efforts since the agreement of the Gothenburg protocol to see whether they could commit to further emission reductions in the framework of the present proposal. Further commitments have been made, but important uncertainties still make it difficult for Member States to see all the way to 2010 at the present time. Among the most notable uncertainties are the new energy scenarios which Member States cannot calculate until they determine how they will implement their Kyoto commitments, and the enlargement process, which could alter the optimal solution for sharing the burden of reducing acidification and ozone in the Community. Taking progress in these and other areas into account, and if necessary, recalculating burdens, was always amongst the aims of the reviews in 2004 and 2008 as originally proposed by the Commission. The Commission believes that the rewording of and additions to Article 9 to take account of Council's stepwise approach to emission ceilings strengthen the revision provisions. The Commission remains confident that the interim environmental objectives of the proposal can be met in 2010.