Capacitybuilding in Implementation of the Environmental Acquis at the Local and Regional Level

European Commission / DG Environment

CapacityBuilding in Implementation of the Environmental Acquis at the Local and Regional Level

Capacity Review Reports – Review and Summary

Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control

Date: 17 May 2005

Prepared by: Norman Sheridan

Checked by:Soren Johnsen

Client Ref. No.: EuropeAid/116215/CSV/PHA

CapacityBuilding in Implementation of the Environmental Acquis

Contents

Contents

Abbreviations

1Introduction

2Transposition issues

3Institutional issues

4Conclusions

Abbreviations

BAT / Best Available Techniques
BREF / BAT Reference Document
CRR / Capacity Review Report
EIA / Environmental Impact Assessment
IPPC / Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control

Country abbreviations

BG / Bulgaria
CZ / CzechRepublic
EE / Estonia
HU / Hungary
LT / Lithuania
LV / Latvia
PL / Poland
RO / Romania
SL / Slovenia
SK / Slovakia

1Introduction

The overall objective of the project “Capacity building in implementation of the environmental acquis” is to develop the ability of local and regional authorities in the ten so called “Phare countries” (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania) to effectively implement environmental legislation, particularly in the domains of Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).

One specific activity of the project is to carry out an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the present administrative practices and capacities in the application of IPPC in the countries and, in particular, in the pilot regions within the countries selected for the training and capacity building components within the project.

This activity has now been completed and Capacity Review Reports (CRR) have been prepared for each country. The CRRs reviewed the current administrative practices and capacities in the countries concerned and assessed the specific needs of the trainees in the pilot regions for training. This latter was essential for the development of focused training programmes not only for the country but, where necessary, for the pilot region concerned. Thus the CRR was an important baseline study, not only for the development for the training programmes, but also acted as a basis for the preparation of the Recommendations for Revision of Existing Administrative Regulation (Task 4 of the project).

This current Report summarises the findings of the ten country CRRs prepared for IPPC and draws some general conclusions on the status of implementation of the national legislation transposing the requirements of the IPPC Directive.

2Transposition issues

Eight of the ten countries participating in this project have now acceded to the European Union, so it would not be surprising if the IPPC Directive has been fully transposed into national legislation. The analysis of national legislation supports this supposition to a large degree in that seven countries report full transposition, although Romania reports that there may be a few issues of translation of the categories of industry that are subject to the IPPC legislation, and there is some inconsistency in the legislation relating to the dates by which existing installations become subject to this legislation. Both Latvia and Lithuania still require amendment to secondary legislation to enable the authorities to specify conditions in the permit relating to noise, odour, energy efficiency and prevention of site contamination.

Of more concern is the situation in Slovenia. The Environmental Protection Law was adopted in April 2004 and gives effect to the framework and main principles of IPPC. However secondary legislation is still required to implement the detailed requirements of the Directive (including all the annexes). This secondary legislation is currently being drafted.

Status of transposition of IPPC Directive 96/61/EC / BG / CZ / EE / HU / LT / LV / PL / RO / SL / SK
- Fully transposed / X / X / X / X / X / X / X
- Significantly transposed / X / X
- Major efforts still required to complete transposition / X
- Not transposed

Directive 2003/35/EC amends the IPPC Directive (and the EIA Directive) with regard to public participation and access to justice requirements. The Directive must be implemented in Member States by 25th June 2005 at the latest. Estonia, Latvia and Slovenia have already transposed the requirements relevant to IPPC. Bulgaria, Hungary and Polandhave significantly transposed the relevant requirements, and Lithuania is preparing the necessary amendments to existing legislation. CzechRepublic, Romania and Slovakia have not yet commenced drafting of the necessary legislation.

Status of transposition of IPPC provisions of Directive 2003/35/EC on public participation / BG / CZ / EE / HU / LT / LV / PL / RO / SL / SK
- Fully transposed / X / X / X
- Significantly transposed / X / X / X
- currently being transposed / X
- Major efforts still required to complete transposition
- Not transposed / X / X / X

Directive 2003/87/EC establishes a scheme for greenhouse gas emission allowance trading within the Community and amends the IPPC Directive. Member States were required to implement the Directive by 31st December 2003. As regards the amendments to the IPPC Directive; Latvia, Slovenia and Slovakia report that they have already complied with this obligation. Poland and Romania have not yet commenced transposition efforts, while all the other countries are currently drafting the necessary legislation.

Status of transposition of relevant IPPC provisions of Directive 2003/87/EC on GHG emission trading / BG / CZ / EE / HU / LT / LV / PL / RO / SL / SK
- Fully transposed / X / X / X
- Significantly transposed
- currently being transposed / X / X / X / X / X
- Major efforts still required to complete transposition
- Not transposed / X / X

Annex I of the IPPC Directive defines the scope of the Directive – that is to say it specifies the categories of industry to which the Directive applies. Some variations in national legislation appear, for example:

• Both Estonia and Hungary have included additional categories of industry in their national legislation: for example, Estonia includes oil shale production and refining and intensive cattle farming; and Hungary includes certain mining activities.
• For some categories of industry Bulgaria and Estonia have set stricter thresholds by which that category becomes subject to the IPPC requirements.
• In all other countries the categories, and thresholds, are the same as in the Directive Annex I[1].

Most countries have introduced a single integrated permit covering all the required conditions for IPPC permitting. However, in two countries, some of the permit conditions required are set out in other permits:

• In Hungary a separate permit is required for water use and discharges to water, and a separate permit for issues concerning human health. However, following ministerial reorganisation, it is anticipated that in the near future water issues will be merged into the IPPC permit.
• Although there is a “final integrated permit” in Romania, this is not the only relevant permit that is required: a number of other permits are also required prior to the issuance of the “integrated permit”. Most significant amongst these is the water management permit. Thus permit conditions pertaining to water management are included in the two permits (and enforced by two separate bodies). Thus there appears to be duplication leading to unnecessary burdens on the operators and authorities alike.

All countries, except for CzechRepublic, have procedures in place to ensure that existing installations come ‘on-stream’ on a gradual basis over a period of time. In Czech Republic all existing installations are only required to obtain an IPPC permit by 30 October 2007. This raises a risk that the permitting authorities will be overwhelmed with permit applications in the months leading up to this deadline, and every eight years thereafter when the permit must be reviewed.

Estonia, Poland, Romania and Slovenia report that the national IPPC legislation is not always clear

3Institutional issues

The institutional arrangements for implementation of IPPC vary between the ten countries, reflecting national custom and procedures. For example:

• In two countries (Bulgaria and Slovenia) the central authorities are the competent authority for issuing IPPC permits.
• In all other countries, except Poland, the regional authorities have competence.
• In Polandthe regional authority (voivode) has competence for those installations for which an EIA would have been required, while the local authority (poviat) has competence for all other types of installations. There has been some concern raised that the poviat-level authorities do not always have the time or experience to deal effectively with IPPC issues and that responsibility has been devolved to too low a level of government.
• When there may be trans-boundary pollution issues, the central authorities in all countries assume responsibility for issuing IPPC permits.

In general, the level of responsibility for inspection and monitoring falls on the same level of government as that for issuing permits:

• These tasks are carried out by the central authorities in Slovenia.
• In CzechRepublic they are carried out by the central and regional authorities.
• In Romania responsibility falls on the local authority.
• In Poland both the regional and local authorities are involved.
• In all other countries inspection and enforcement activities are conducted by the regional authorities.

Authorities for permits / BG / CZ / EE / HU / LT / LV / PL / RO / SL / SK
- permits issued by central authorities / X / X
- permits issued by regional authorities / X / X / X / X / X / X / X / X
- permits issued by local authorities / X
Inspection and enforcement
- by central authorities / X / X
-by regional authorities / X / X / X / X / X / X / X / X
- by local authorities / X / X

Most countries have dedicated departments dealing with IPPC (although they may also have other responsibilities and duties). Hungary, which does not have a specialised department, has a novel solution in that an “IPPC core team” is often established in the region for dealing with all IPPC permit issues.

The BAT Reference Documents (BREFs) are essential guidance documents to assist in the development of installation-specific permit conditions. The EU have prepared and are continuing to prepare BREFs to assist the competent authorities and operators in this task. The use of these EU BREFs in national systems again shows some interesting differences:

• Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Poland and Romania have prepared/are preparing national BREFs covering, at least, some categories of industry.
• CzechRepublic, Poland, Romania and Slovakia have translated or are in the process of translating the EU-BREFs into the national language.
• Summaries of the EU-BREFs have been prepared or are being prepared in national languages in Lithuania, Latvia and Slovenia.
• In Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia and Slovenia (most or all) EU-BREFs are only available in English.

The lack of detailed BREFs in national languages is likely to hinder the development of installation-specific conditions based on BAT as there is limited English at the authorities (and presumably also with operators). The language difficulty is compounded in some regions in Estonia where the regional staff are Russian speakers with limited Estonian (although interestingly this problem has not been reported in Latvia or Lithuania which also have Russian minorities).

All countries, except Slovenia, have prepared general guidance documents on the national IPPC regime, including detailed information on how to complete the permit application, and how permit conditions will be determined. These guidance documents are available to authorities, operators and the public and in many cases are available electronically.

In terms of staff levels (capacity) at the central level to carry out their tasks – mainly preparation of guidance documents and preparation/translation of BREFs – only CzechRepublic, Estonia and Hungary report that such staff levels are sufficient.

Institutional capacity / BG / CZ / EE / HU / LT / LV / PL / RO / SL / SK
Central level
- sufficient / X / X / X
- insufficient / X / X / X / X / X / X / X
Permitting authorities (regional/local level)
- sufficient / N/A / N/A / X
- insufficient / N/A / X / X / X / X / X / X / X / N/A
No staff and IPPC applications / BG[2] / CZ[3] / EE[4] / HU[5] / LT[6] / LV[7] / PL[8] / RO[9] / SL[10] / SK[11]
No staff for IPPC applications / 12 / 20 / 4 / 110 / 21 / 29 / 9 / 36 / 2 / 32
No permits 2004 / 50 / 184 / 11 / 106 / 46 / 34 / 16 / 26 / 20 / 142
No permits 2005 / 14 / ? / 30 / 234 / 48 / 14 / 42 / 60 / 40 / 146
No installations / 138 / 899 / 71 / 514 / 155 / 73 / 238 / 280 / 149-200 / 453
Maximum Permit validity period / Unlimited / Not specified / Not specified / 5 yr / 8 yr / 5 yr / 10 yr / 5 yr / 5 yr / Unlimited
Permit review / 5 yrs / 8 yrs / 1 yrs / 5 yr / 5 yr / 8 yr or 10 yr if EMAS

Of more concern is the country analysis that staff levels at the regional/local level for IPPC permitting tasks is insufficient in all countries except Slovakia. The Consultant’s view, based on the results in the above table (which itself is based on the analysis in the pilot regions only) is that this may not necessarily be the case – however a simplistic division of permits by staff numbers is misleading as in most countries (and especially Hungary) the staff reported above are not dedicated solely to IPPC and have other responsibilities and duties as well.

In any event, the reasons for this reported deficiency in numbers are varied, but include;

• there are simply not enough staff for the job;
• staff have many other responsibilities (often the staff are also responsible for EIA);
• the lack/insufficiency of guidance and training results in more time being required for assessing permit applications. In some cases this deficiency is compounded by the short period of time the authorities have to assess the permit application, and indeed the quality of the permit application itself.

However, it must be noted and acknowledged, that the MemberState countries do have a significant amount of work to do to ensure that all existing installations are permitted under the IPPC regime by the deadline of the end of October 2007. Thereafter the work of the permitting authorities should decrease as they will then be reviewing and/or issuing new permits for new installations or for installations where the permit has come to an end.

The availability of modelling techniques to determine whether proposed emission limit values (ELVs) set in permit conditions are such to ensure that environmental quality standards are not exceeded (which would then require better than BAT conditions, or refusal of the permit) shows a marked variation between the countries.

• Just over half of the countries have adequate air modelling (Estonia, Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia report this as a deficiency)
• Only Poland, Slovenia and Slovakia have adequate water modelling techniques available.

Availability of modelling techniques / BG / CZ / EE / HU / LT / LV / PL / RO / SL / SK
Air
- sufficient / X / X / X / X / X / X
- insufficient / X / X / X / X
Water
- sufficient / X / X / X
- insufficient / X / X / X / X / X / X / X

On the plus side, all countries, except Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania, report that there are adequate numbers of laboratories to enable operators to assess and analyse results of self-monitoring to ensure that the operators are in compliance with permit conditions on emissions.

Similarly, all countries, except Slovakia, have sufficient laboratories and adequate staff to assist inspectors in enforcement of those permit conditions.

In general, in can be said that the trainees selected to participate in this project had previously received little or no training in IPPC. While this can be seen as an endorsement of the need for this project, it must be stressed that this lack of training should not and cannot be viewed as an assessment of the IPPC permitting authorities as a whole – and better reflects the selection criteria used in the countries in picking trainees to participate in this project.

4Conclusions

In terms of transposition, per se, of the IPPC Directive, a few countries still have some work to do to complete transposition. Some minor work is required by Latvia, Lithuania and Romania; while Slovenia has to adopt the secondary implementing legislation to give effect to the framework law on IPPC. Only Estonia, Latvia and Slovenia report that Directive 2003/35/EC has been fully transposed, while Czech Republic, Romania and Slovakia have not yet commenced transposition. Concerning the GHG emission trading Directive 2003/87/EC, Latvia, Slovenia and Slovakia have completed transposition, while Poland and Romania have not yet commenced transposition.

The Capacity Review Reports highlight a number of strengths and weaknesses of the current system for IPPC. While these vary from country to country, some general themes emerge. Some of the weaknesses can and will be addressed through this project, while others (such as sufficiency of laboratories) are outside the ambit of the project.

Main weaknesses of staff in pilot regions for implementation / BG / CZ / EE / HU / LT / LV / PL / RO / SL / SK
- legislation not always clear / X / X / X / X
- Operators have limited knowledge of IPPC / X / X / X
- Authorities have limited knowledge of IPPC / X / X
- lack of clear guidelines (inc BREFs) / X / X / X / X
- lack of clear procedural manuals / X / X / X
- limited English / X / X / X / X / X / X / X
- limited time for assessing permit applications / X / X
- limited staff levels / X / X / X / X / X / X / X / X / X
- limited IT / X / X / X / X
- limited laboratories / X / X / X
- limited or no training / X / X / X / X
Main strengths of staff in pilot regions for implementation / BG / CZ / EE / HU / LT / LV / PL / RO / SL / SK
- co-ordination with other relevant authorities / X / X
- clear procedures / X / X
- clear guidelines (inc BREFs) / X / X / X / X / X / X
- Regular training / X / X / X / X
-good IT / X / X / X / X / X / X
- sufficient staff / X
- sufficient laboratories / X / X / X / X / X / X / X
- good awareness of requirements / X / X / X

Most countries report that they have insufficient staff for carrying out their tasks under the IPPC Directive. It is currently difficult for the Consultant to assess the validity of this as staff with responsibility for IPPC permitting have other responsibilities, and in any event, the problem does not simply lie with absolute numbers of staff available. The limited training (as least as regards the trainees) can only add to the difficulties faced by limited and/or overburdened staff. Any such difficulties will be particularly acute up to the end of October 2007 when all existing installations will be required to have an IPPC permit.

The training provided by this project can go some way towards alleviating this problem in that the permitting authorities (at least in the pilot regions) will have a greater awareness of the issues and be better equipped to assess permit applications, thus leading to improved efficiency and better quality permits being issued.

The results from the Capacity Review Reports indicate the importance of the Recommendations for Revision to Existing Administrative Regulations which are to be prepared. They also highlight the need for these Recommendations to look beyond the actual administrative regulations and to make recommendations concerning the actual administrative practices. This will include, for example, suggestions for additions/improvements to guidance documents issued to the permitting authorities, or how to deal with permitting of installations that may have a trans-boundary effect.