environmental legislation applicable to industrial gases ... - eiga

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IGC DOC 108/03 • The European Parliament is an elected body that has committees, which give opinions on the commissions proposals, and in some cases, for example environmental issues, they have the power to veto commission proposals under the powers of co decision (Amsterdam treaty). • The Council of Ministers is made up of Member states representatives and has a veto on some issues such as taxation. • The European Courts of Justice decides on points of EU law, though these normally come via the judicial process in each member state. 4.3.4 Types of EU Legislation There are three main types of EU legislation • Directives are addressed to member states and the member states must implement them in their own legislation for them to have effect. Directives set the objectives and are binding as to the result to be achieved. Member States are thus required to interpret the Directives and give then the force of law in their own jurisdictions. Member States can go over and above the requirements of a Directive for reasons of enhancing environmental protection. • Regulations are effective immediately in the member states with no implementing legislation necessary, for example the regulation on Ozone depleting substances • Decisions are also effective immediately, and are mostly administrative decisions, for example the waste list. 4.3.5 Scope of legislation Many of the regulations are written with a wide remit without an understanding about how they could affect specialised sectors such as industrial gases. This can lead to anomalies that need to be addressed at the appropriate point in the legislative process. The decisions on environmental issues are taken at many different levels. 4.3.6 Local and National Legislation The EU legislation is implemented in the National and local regulations. A timeframe is established to implement each Directive and this means that the Directives can be implemented with possible different interpretations and at a different time in each Member State. These regulations need to be followed at a minimum. 4.4 Showing Compliance with new and existing legislation 4.4.1 Tracking new EU legislation The EIGA office gets the publications from the Commission (the Official Journal) directly and also has information from the working group experts, other trade associations (such as CEFIC, UNICE), EIGA members and associations, publications and monitoring services. This information is passed to the relevant working group, which decides if action is needed to produce guidance for the Members and tracks the progress. The working group process is described in the EIGA expert’s guide (Doc 901/02). 4.4.2 Consulting on new EU legislation Inputs into the legislation are possible at various steps in the process. The original drafting is usually done by the Commission and contact can be made with the officials involved or via other trade associations. However, it is sometimes difficult to identify how the more general framework legislation will be interpreted. 3
IGC DOC 108/03 Often the framework legislation is then developed further at EU level with standards, annexes or other documents. These are developed in conjunction with the experts from the member States so the input from National Associations or other EIGA members in those countries is a crucial part of the process. Often standards organisations such as CEN and ISO are not involved, which can make these documents more difficult to influence. The legislation is then transposed into national and local regulations in the member states. This can lead to different interpretations that also can be fed back into the European documents. Again the input from and communication with the EIGA members in these countries can be critical. 4.4.3 Tracking information at each site or company To identify and satisfy the relevant legal requirements and /or ISO 14001 each company and site needs to establish a process to manage the legal information from EIGA and other sources. This should include regular communication of the requirements to the concerned employees (e.g. from regular bulletins, newsletters and electronic information) and update of relevant standards, procedures and training. It is important that any unexpected interpretation, different from the EIGA interpretation of European legislation is communicated back to EIGA. 4.4.4 Sources of information There are many sources of information on the regulations for International regulations and some useful web sites are given below 4.4.4.1 Trade Associations and Non Government organisations EIGA http://www.eiga.org/ CEFIC www.cefic.org UNICE http://www.unice.org/Content/Default.asp World Business council for Sustainable development http://www.wbcsd.org/ 4.4.4.2 European Law and Standardisation Euro-Lex European Law http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/index.html European Environment Agency http://www.eea.eu.int/ European IPPC Bureau http://eippcb.jrc.es/ CEN http://www.cenorm.be/ 4.4.4.3 International Law and Standardisation OECD http://www.oecd.org/ UNEP http://www.unep.org/ ISO http://www.iso.ch/iso/en/ISOOnline.openerpage 4.5 European Union Environmental Legislation applicable to Industrial Gases Operations The attached tables in Appendix 2 provide a summary of the main European Environmental legislation that could impact Industrial Gases Operations. More details are provided in publication IGC Doc 106/03 Environmental Issues Guide. The legislation included in these tables is that which has a direct or possible indirect impact on EIGA members. Legislation with no obvious impact (e.g. Emissions from the titanium dioxide industry, noise levels for sub sonic aircraft) does not appear at all on the list. 4
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