| Title: |
DRAFT REPORT on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on waste (COM(2005)0667 – C6-0009/2006 – 2005/0281(COD))
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| Resource Type: |
document --> policy documents
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| Country: |
European Union
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| Year: |
2006 |
| Availability: |
Draft Report 2005/0281(COD). PR\618638EN.doc PE 374.384v01-00
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| Author 1/Producer: |
European Parliament
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| Other Authors/Producers: |
Jackson, Caroline
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| Author / Producer Type: |
Agency, regulator or other governmental or inter-governmental body
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| Publisher: |
European Parliament
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| Format (e.g. PDF): |
PDF
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| Size: (e.g. 20mb) |
0.2
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EUGRIS Keyword(s): |
Brownfields
Contaminated land-->Contaminated land overview
Contaminated land-->policy and regulatory
Contaminated land-->Remediation options-->Ex situ treatment technologies
Contaminated land-->Remediation options-->Excavation
Contaminated land-->Remediation options-->Recycling/reuse
Contaminated land-->Remediation options-->Remediation options overview
Sediments
Soil-->Soil Overview
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| Short description: |
The report reviews the Waste FD and proposes revisions on an article by article basis
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| Long description: |
Jackson's explanatory statement
This Directive carries forward the debate begun by the first EU Waste
Directives in the 1970s and given greater focus by the Landfill Directive of
1999. The questions for our times are how do we reduce the amount of
waste that our increasing prosperity encourages us produce, and how do
we now need to change our policies so that we deal with waste primarily
as a resource from which value can be extracted, rather than as a residue
that can only be stored in a landfill. Given the number of Court of Justice
cases that have arisen on the interpretation of EU waste law to date, the
first thing we should try to ensure is that whatever law we finally adopt
establishes certainty - about definitions and policy intentions.
This is why the rapporteur has suggested a number of additions to Article
3 and a consolidation there of definitions appearing elsewhere in the
Directive. The rapporteur has received many representations about the
need for the Directive to contain a reference to the waste hierarchy in its
fullest - 5 stage - form. It is important to remember that the hierarchy has
no legal force. However stating it sends out a signal about priorities and, in
the case of this directive, resolves what is rather a confusingly drafted
Article (Article 1). It is, however, immediately clear that allowance must be
made for departures from the hierarchy when conditions demand it.
The question is: what conditions? The rapporteur's suggestions are
contained in the last part of the amendment to Article 1. There seems to
be a consensus that departures should be based on life-cycle
thinking/analysis/assessment, and a cost-benefit analysis has to fit in
there somewhere. The question is how rigorous a clearance/ approval on
this basis would have to be: would a Member State operate clearance
procedures on a case-by-case basis? Would there be a reference to the
Commission each time? Perhaps, the best course - or at least one
suggestion - is contained in the rapporteur's idea that the Commission
might establish guidelines as to how life cycle analysis might work.
Then there is the question of what happens next. We need further action
to determine which waste streams will be covered by the provisions of
Article 11 and moved from categorisation as waste to classification as a
product. The rapporteur's amendment to Article 11, new paragraph 3a,
sets out an agenda for future action by the Commission. On the question
of procedure, the rapporteur concludes that there is far too great a reliance
in the directive on the use of the comitology process, as set out in Council
Decision 1999/468/EC.
The Directive contains 11 references in various articles to decisions that
are to be referred to the comitology process. But a distinction needs to be
made between using comitology for technical adaptations, and mis-using
it to take decisions of a more general, highly political nature, that are best
taken through the co-decision process. For this reason, the rapporteur is
suggesting that we move to the co-decision procedure in article 5 (to
establish efficiency criteria), in article 11 (to establish criteria for when
waste becomes a product) and in article 21 (minimum standards for
permits.) Changes to the Comitology process are certainly under
discussion but the rapporteur is not optimistic that they will add up to
more powers for MEPs to veto a decision, or to more involvements by
outside interests.
It suits the Member States and Commission to keep the process as
closed as possible. That is why we must resolutely resist its inappropriate
encroachment on democratic decision taking. The Directive encompasses
the existing directives on hazardous waste and waste oils. The rapporteur
considers that it does this adequately and safely: she would be resistant
to reversing the process of simplification to re-build these directives in their
entirety. She has, however, included one amendment to article18 in the
direction of the promotion of waste oil regeneration. The question of what
will qualify under the Directive as a recovery process and what will qualify
as a disposal process is a vital one. The Directive introduces a qual
ification based on efficiency criteria in article 5. The criteria are set out in
Annex II, section R1. Neither the Directive, nor the thematic strategy nor
the impact assessment attached to it gives any details at all of the likely
economic and social impact of the application of these criteria. Yet they
are vital: an incinerator that qualifies as a recovery operation can deal with
imported waste, and can be part of a strategy for meeting recovery targets
in such EU legislation as the packaging Directive.
An incinerator that qualifies as a disposal operation has no such options.
Given the short time scale before the new standards are supposed to
apply, it seems unlikely that existing operators could adjust their
processes in time. The new criteria are highly likely to cut across existing
contracts and may damage jobs and local authority waste plans. Evidence
from France suggests that out of a total of 85 existing plants, only 14
could satisfy the recovery criteria chosen. Before the Committee votes it
needs to know more details of the impact of what is proposed. It cannot be
right that at a time when the air is thick with suggestions for making
impact assessment more efficient, we should miss such an assessment
out completely on this crucial aspect of the Directive.
Finally, the Directive contains two sets of proposals for waste plans and
programmes. The rapporteur's amendments retain the overall objective of
encouraging planning for waste plans and prevention programmes. But the
changes proposed make the detailed requirements less bureaucratic and
better matched, in tune with the principle of subsidiarity, with differing local
conditions. We should also ask what precisely the Commission is going
to do with the plethora of plans and programmes that it will now have to
monitor. Such continuous monitoring is better left to the work of the
European Environment Agency. The Agency is not mentioned in the
Directive but should surely play a key role in ensuring that Member States
are broadly in step with each other in the war against waste and for the
better use of resources.
Taken from Resource Recovery Forum News http://www.resourcesnotwaste.org/
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Submitted By:
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Professor Paul Bardos WhoDoesWhat?
Last update: 13/07/2006
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