The NGO is levelling a number of criticisms at the EU executive and says Poland’s application for a derogation under the Industrial Emissions Directive (IED) was flawed as it did not provide enough information on compliance measures.
EEB also questions the decision to approve the application, known as a transitional national plan (TNP), arguing that the plants it refers to are helping Poland breach EU air quality standards. It also fears the Commission is not ensuring timely compliance with the Best Available Techniques (BAT) emission levels the IED requires.
NGOs cannot challenge Commission decisions directly, so EEB and HEAL first asked it to review its approval of the TNP. EEB is now contesting the Commission’s response and the TNP decision with the help of another NGO, the Frank Bold Society.
TNPs are one of the two main types of derogation allowed under the IED and mean groups of non-compliant large combustion plants only have to meet IED’s NOx, SO2 and dust limits by mid-2020, rather than 2016. Member states wanting to make use of the derogation had to apply to the Commission by January 2013.
The NGOs believe there was insufficient public participation in the preparation and review of the Polish TNP to meet EU and Aarhus convention rules and that an environmental impact assessment should have been carried out.
Their complaint on the compliance measures is that Poland simply provided a generic list of the type of upgrades that could be carried out across any of the plants in the TNP without details for individual plants, timelines or enforcement measures.
The BAT reference documents which national authorities issuing pollution permits will use to set air emission limits for large combustion plants under the IED are being revised but the limits are likely to be tougher than the standards the Polish TNP requires by mid-2020, the NGOs say.
The TNP’s aggregated emission ceiling also allows some combustion plants to be much further from BAT levels than others.
“This permitting system has been designed to reward with extra pollution and time extensions those laggard operators used to derogatory compliance regimes, with the complicity of their national authorities, with extra profit margins whilst making the EU citizens and the environment pay the price,” says Christian Schaible from EEB.
EEB filed a similar case against the Commission in mid-June over Greece’s TNP. One of its concerns in that case is the inclusion of a power plant in Agios Dimitrios which is the EU’s largest point source of mercury.
Mercury emissions are not included in the IED but would be brought down by action to tackle dust, EEB says. However the Greek TNP has very lax dust limits.
The Commission has asked for this case to be delayed until after another on the rights of NGOs to challenge its decisions has been settled.
