Implementation of the Environmental Liability Directive (debate)
Benedek Jávor, rapporteur for the opinion of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety. – Mr President, sorry for being late; I was at the trilogue.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) participated, in accordance with Rule 54, in the discussion on the Environmental Liability Directive (ELD). The ELD is a key piece of legislation aiming to establish a framework of environmental liability based on the ‘polluter pays’ principle and to prevent and remedy environmental damage.
As both the Commission’s report and the Committee on Legal Affairs highlighted, despite some improvements, the directive has shown incompleteness and thus limited effectiveness. Implementation still varies significantly from one Member State to another. We have a patchwork of liability systems, due also to the interplay with already—existing national laws, which in my opinion can undermine the common standards and expose some Member States or regions to a greater risk of environmental disaster and the financial consequences thereof. As is clear from the ENVI opinion, better implementation of the directive, including improving the information base and providing more training and assistance to the Member States – a key pillar of the Commission’s action plan and multiannual work programme – is needed, but is far from being sufficient.
We should address the remaining challenges in a systematic manner and revise the directive in the near future, in the light of the Commission’s recent Regulatory Fitness and Performance (REFIT) exercise. A revision would allow us to extend the scope and applicability of the directive by making operators of all activities strictly liable for all environmental damage they cause, which means removing the limitation in Annex 3. In this context, the INI report rightly calls on the Commission to impose liability for damage to human health and the environment in the future and also calls for the removal of certain exemptions.
I also welcome very much the call for rethinking the financial security system, which is at the heart of the matter. This would entail high-level mandatory environmental liability insurance for operators, differentiated ceilings for activities with different risk factors and the creation of an EU—wide fund to bear the cost of relevant measures beyond the mandatory security in the event of large—scale disasters.
I also stress that proper involvement of inspection bodies is key. In this context, the Commission should further develop inspection support capacity at EU level and help the Member States strengthen their national bodies.
Let me highlight one more message: we urgently need EU legislation on the minimum standards for implementing the Aarhus Convention ‘Access to Justice’ pillar.