Council of Environment Ministers (Hansard, 16 June 1981)

§ Mr. King

The Council agreed a decision on the setting up of a marine oil pollution information system. It also discussed progress reports on the draft directive on environmental assessment and on the production and use of chlorofluorocarbons. The Council failed to reach agreement of the draft directives, both deferred from the last Council, on major industrial hazards and discharges to water of mercury from Chloralkali plants.

The proposal for a marine oil pollution information system was agreed in principle. This will provide for an up-to-date inventory of resources available to fight oil pollution, and a compendium of the properties of oil and means of treatment. The proposal for an information file on oil tankers is being considered as part of a separate study on port State enforcement.

There was a first discussion by Ministers of certain issues arising out of the proposal for a directive on 361W environmental assessment. I explained the United Kingdom's doubts about the principle of such a proposal. I received some support from the Irish and Netherlands delegations in putting the case for greater freedom for member States to decide on projects which should be subject to an assessment. On the other issues concerning responsibility of the developer, public consultation, trans-frontier consultation, and staging of assessment, there was a fair degree of consensus.

The Commission presented a report on action taken to deal with chlorofluorocarbons following the decision taken by the Council on 17 December 1979. It was invited to present formal proposals for further precautionary measures to be applied from 1982. It was agreed that the Community should prepare to participate in the drafting of a global convention on the protection of the ozone layer on the basis of the decision taken by the ninth session of the governing council of the United Nations environment programme.

There was a brief discussion of the draft directive on major industrial hazards. It was agreed that the only bar to formal agreement of the proposal was the article concerning risks in one country arising from activities in another, which was unacceptable to the French delegation. The Council invited the French delegation to reconsider its position and to report to the committee of permanent representatives within three months.

The Council returned to the mercury proposal which was discussed at the last Council. Substantial progress on a number of outstanding points was made in a working group in the margins. However, agreement could not be reached in the Council on the controls to be applied to discharges from new plant. Most delegations and the Commission were prepared to accept a provision which would have protected the "parallel approach" provided for in the parent directive on discharges to the aquatic environment, ENV 131; but the French and Italian delegations pressed for provisions which would have applied limit values to new plant, and which were therefore unacceptable to the United Kingdom. The proposal was therefore referred back to COREPER.

The Council also heard statements from member States on vehicle emissions, and on environmental policy and employment. I made a short statement on lead pollution, 362W drawing attention to the decisions recently taken by the United Kingdom Government on the basis of the Lawther report and expressing the hope that it would now be possible for the Council to make progress with the draft directive on lead in air.

At the conclusion of the Council I expressed the thanks of the Council to the outgoing President, Dr. Ginjaar; and indicated my intention to make progress on outstanding issues during the United Kingdom Presidency in the second half of this year.