This month the European Parliament's Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee, will be voting on the integrated pollution and prevention control (IPPC) directive. On 10 September the Committee discussed the draft report from German Liberal MEP Holger Krahmer on the Commission proposal for this directive, in turn revising the existing IPPC directive which has been on the table for over a decade. In his report, Krahmer proposes to establish a so-called European Safety Net (ESN), which is a maximum Emission Limit Value (ELV) that under no circumstances can be exceeded. This constitutes a substantial difference compared to the Commission proposal, released in December 2007. Krahmer wants community wide emission limit values (ELVs) through the ESN to be introduced when the directive comes into force. The problem that the Commission has with this proposal was that it might not guarantee enough flexibility for industry. In response to this, Krahmer told EE&PL that the: 'ESN preserves the necessary flexibility which is granted by the current legislation but tackles the misuse of this flexibility.'
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