EU plans waste shipment inspection standards

2486, 18/02/08

The European commission is drawing up an action plan to improve implementation of EU waste shipment rules, ENDS has learned. The plan could suggest minimum criteria for inspections of waste shipments by member state authorities, a commission official said.

EU rules governing cross-border transfers of waste were updated last year in a revision of the 1993 waste shipments regulation (EED 12/07/07 http://www.endseuropedaily.com/23592). The action plan is designed to ensure the new rules are applied effectively, following persistent reports of illegal waste shipments originating from the EU (EED 17/01/08 http://www.endseuropedaily.com/24643 and EED 07/03/07 http://www.endseuropedaily.com/22772).

Commission official Thomas Ormond told a waste policy conference in Paris on Friday that efforts to improve training and information-sharing between national inspection authorities would be a key feature of the action plan. It could also suggest minimum criteria for waste shipment inspections, "perhaps in terms of their frequency".

Such criteria would not be binding on EU governments if set out in a non-legislative action plan. But binding criteria could follow later under separate plans to add mandatory inspection requirements to specific pieces of EU environmental legislation, including the wasteshipments regulation (EED 19/11/07 http://www.endseuropedaily.com/24311).

Meanwhile the commission is considering changing a requirement in the revised regulation that currently forces waste exporters to reveal their suppliers to customers (EED 29/05/07 http://www.endseuropedaily.com/23285).  One official said a "soft solution" to the issue could be achieved in new guidance being prepared on how to fill in the information form specified in the regulation. But "a binding solution would have to be proposed through codecision", he added, as the commission's legal service has advised that such a change could not be made through the EU's comitology process.

Follow-up: Conference organised by the Academy of European law http://www.era.int/web/en/html/index.htm. See also draft guidance document http://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/shipments/pdf/reg_2007_00400_en.pdf on submitting information under the waste shipments regulation.

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