Changes from report parliamentary committee draft to plenary report

The European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (E-PRTR) contains data reported annually by some 30,000 industrial facilities which cover 65 economic activities across the Union. This Regulation implements the 2006 Kyiv Protocol on Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers (‘Protocol’).

Every year, Member States send to the Commission a report containing data submitted by the operators of industrial facilities on the releases and transfers of each facility. The data are then published by the Commission on a public website, with the support of the European Environment Agency.

The E-PRTR has proven to be a pivotal knowledge base on releases from Union industrial activities. It has been welcomed by the stakeholders, especially after the Industrial Emissions Portal ( ‘Portal’) was created, linking it closely with Directive 2010/75/EU on industrial emissions (‘Industrial Emissions Directive – IED’). The Portal, having replaced the E-PRTR website, brings together data on industrial activities reported under these two Union environmental laws.

With the present proposal, the Commission aims to further improve the E-PRTR by aligning reporting obligations set out in other environmental legislation by reporting of additional contextual information. The proposal of the Commission encompasses the following changes:

 The Regulation’s sectoral scope is revised to be more consistent with activities covered by related environmental law. This concerns the IED in particular, but also Directive (EU) 2015/2193 on medium combustion plants (MCPD) and Council Directive 91/271/EEC on urban waste water treatment (UWWT Directive).

In the present report, as ENVI Rapporteur, I support this approach and do not file amendments that would compromise the proposal.

 The Commission proposes that activities under the scope of the Regulation should be reported at installation level – as in the case of these other laws – rather than at facility level.

As a Rapporteur, I support this approach, as far as it is supported in the IED revision. The present report supports installation-level reporting, but takes into account the option, provided by Article 4(2) of the IED, which provides, that a single permit might cover two or more installations or parts of installations operated by the same operator on the same site. Therefore, I include this option throughout the report, including in the very definition of “installation” for the purposes of the Regulation.

 The Commission, based on the EU Green Deal zero-pollution ambition, aims to cover all relevant pollutants. Certain pollutants are added to Annex II of the Regulation, including:

 priority substances under the 2000/60/EC Water Framework Directive and the 2008/105/EU Surface Water Directive;

 substances identified as of very high concern in Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006 (REACH);

 substances covered by Union law on groundwater and air quality, including the Groundwater Directive, the Ambient Air Quality Directive and Directive 2004/107/EC on the concentrations of certain pollutants in ambient air.

In the report, I support this ambition and file no amendments to Annex II.

 To be consistent with Union policies on the circular economy and decarbonisation and to enable better environmental benchmarking, the Commission proposes that operators should report on production volume and complementary data, especially the use of resources (energy, water, and raw materials).

In my view, as Rapporteur, parts of these new requirements go too far from the initial scope of the Regulation, and overstep the objectives of Directive 2010/75/EU, thus creating unnecessary administrative burden and disproprotionally endangering confidentiality of business information. Therefore, I propose certain amendments, aiming to protect business information and to limit the scope of the information and data to what is necessary, maintaining the core of the Commission proposal.