WRITTEN QUESTION No. 2094/97 by Hiltrud BREYER to the Commission. Electronic scrap
Date: 1997-06-19
Institutions: BREYER, European Parliament
Subjects: Central and Eastern Europe, EU statistics, electrical equipment, export (EU), export of waste, household, metal waste, storage of waste

C 82/28

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

17. 3. 98

For  example,  the  Europol  Convention  was  signed  on  26  July  1995  but  was  not  published  until  27  Novem-
ber 1995, while protocols on the Court of Justice relating to two other Conventions were signed on 29 November
1996 but not published until 20 May 1997.

Answer

(16 October 1997)

The texts adopted by the Council are always published in the Official Journal of the European Communities as
soon as possible. However, in certain circumstances their publication may sometimes be delayed.

The act drawing up the Europol Convention was adopted on 26 July 1995, at the same time as two other acts:
those drawing up the Convention on the use of information technology for customs purposes and the Convention
on  the  protection  of  the  European  Communities(cid:146)  financial  interests.  On  the  same  day,  a  Conference  of  the
Representatives  of  the  Governments  of  the  Member  States  adopted  an  Agreement  on  provisional  application
between certain Member States of the Convention on the use of information technology for customs purposes.
For  the  sake  of  consistency  it  was  of  course  arranged  for  the  three  Conventions  and  the  Agreement  on  the
provisional application of the second Convention to be published in the same edition of the Official Journal.
While publication of Conventions drawn up by the Council in accordance with Article K.3 (2) of the Treaty is
provided for in the Council(cid:146)s Rules of Procedure (Article 18 (4)), the Council has to take a decision to publish an
Agreement adopted by the Conference of the Representatives of the Governments of the Member States. The
decision to publish in this case was taken by the Council on 26 October 1995 and the three Conventions and the
Agreement in question were published on 27 November 1995 in OJ C 316.

The acts drawing up the Protocols on the interpretation, by way of preliminary rulings, by the Court of Justice of
the European Communities of the Convention on protection of financial interests and the Convention on the use
of  information  technology  for  customs  purposes  were  adopted  on  29  November  1996.  So  that  the  list  of
declarations provided for in article 2 of the Protocols should be as exhaustive as possible, Member States were
given some time to make such declarations and the Protocols were published in OJ C 151 of 20 May 1997.

(98/C 82/39)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2094/97

by Hiltrud Breyer (V) to the Commission

(19 June 1997)

Subject: Electronic scrap

1. 

(a)  Is the Commission aware of the amount of annually arising scrap electronic equipment?

(b)  Are there proper figures for it? If not, why not?

(c)  Are there figures covering exports to eastern Europe?

2.  How much scrap electronic equipment is temporarily stored in private households?

Answer given by Mrs Bjerregaard on behalf of the Commission

(9 September 1997)

1.
For 1998 the amount of waste from electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) is estimated to be 8 million
tons.  Hard  figures  are  not  available  due  to  the  lack  of  separate  collection  of  WEEE  in  the  Member  States.
Furthermore, national differences in defining WEEE impede the indication of proper figures. The Commission
does not have figures for these exports.

2.
The Commission does not have figures for temporary storage in private households. One problem with
regard to these figures concerns the definition of WEEE. It appears to be difficult to state precisely from which
point an electrical or electronic product which stays in the household can be considered as discarded in the sense
of the definition of waste as outlined in Article 1a) of Directive 75/442/EEC on waste (1).

(1)  OJ L 194, 25.7.1975.