Parliament reaffirms industrial pollution 'safety net'

German Liberal rapporteur Holger Krahmer was satisfied with the result: "The minimum emission standards we have adopted by introducing the European Safety Net is the tool we need to reduce industrial emissions effectively. The existing legislation is largely neglected by the member states. Now it has a chance of succeeding. This will ensure better environmental protection and a level playing field for industry."

Ahead of the vote, speaking for the Greens, MEP Claude Turmes criticised his fellow MEPs for giving into the demands of Conservative MEPs and other politicians who do not have environmental concerns at the top of their agenda. "We can't negotiate for weeks and then undermine the compromise at the very last minute," he said, adding that it is "a shame" that the largest group in the house is no longer a reliable negotiating partner.

Speaking for the ALDE group, MEP Chris Davies said the recast was a good opportunity to amend the Directive on large combustion plants. He stated that he would prefer to see a derogation to keep old coal-powered plants running, as long as there was a guarantee that new ones would not be built in a manner that locks Europe into a high carbon economy. "But the compromise must be genuine," he asserted.

Scottish MEP Alyn Smith (Greens/EFA) critisicised the vote for burdening certain types of agriculture, the pig sector in particular, with additional pollution rules. "As ever, the principle of the legislation, that large installations be they agricultural, industrial, energy or steel plants should be subject to pollution controls is difficult to object to, but the devil was in the detail. While this dossier will, I suspect, cause us few real problems in Scotland, I am not convinced that including agriculture in pollution rules better suited to steel plants and waste incinerators is sensible or necessary," he said.

The European Environmental Bureau (EEB) congratulated MEPs for strenthening the application of BATs and increasing public participation. "This vote represents a victory for Europeans' health and environment," said Christian Schaible, the EEB's industrial policy officer. 

He was satisfied that MEPs had fought off "some pretty scary amendments" proposed by the European People's Party, the largest political group in the Parliament. According to him, these would have allowed large combustion plants, the intensive farming industry and the refineries sector to evade pollution reduction requirements,  and would have removed proposed soil and groundwater protection measures.

Copa-Cogeca, the European farmers' and cooperatives' organisation, stated that the Parliament had understood the special nature of agricultural and horticultural businesses, which are often so small that they would not have the capacity to manage the IPPC implementation and compliance requirements. "It is therefore good that the Parliament has rejected the proposal to lower the rearing capacity thresholds for poultry, which would have imposed disproportionately stringent requirements on this type of farming," Pekka Pesonen, secretary-general of Copa-Cogeca, said. 

However, he expressed concerns that the new IPPC requirements will create substantial new bureaucracy and costs in other areas. "The costs linked to IPPC can be very substantial and farmers are already suffering from very difficult market situations for their products," he said.