Council of the
European Union
Brussels, 6 March 2015
(OR. en)
6661/15
ADD 1
Interinstitutional File:
2013/0443 (COD)
LIMITE
ENV 131
ENER 78
IND 28
TRANS 66
ENT 32
SAN 54
PARLNAT 12
CODEC 268
NOTE
From:
To:
General Secretariat of the Council
Delegations
No. Cion doc.:
18167/13 ENV 1235 ENER 600 IND 388 TRANS 693 ENT 356 SAN 555
PARLNAT 325 CODEC 3086 - COM(2013) 920 final
Subject:
Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on
the reduction of national emissions of certain atmospheric pollutants and
amending Directive 2003/35/EC
-
Comments from delegations
Delegations will find in the Annex comments from Sweden on the Articles of the above-mentioned
proposal.
6661/15 ADD 1
CM/nv
DG E 1A
LIMITE
1
EN
ANNEX
SWEDEN
Air pollution within EU is causing several thousand deaths annually and has large other negative
effects on both health and environment. Recent studies have amplified the Commission´s findings
that lowering the European emission ceilings largely in line with the original proposal would lead to
substantial economic net benefits for Europe. It is only with a joint effort we can mitigate these
pollutants which have detrimental effects both locally and across borders.
The proposed NEC directive would, fully implemented, significantly improve todays situation and
get us closer to the long-term objectives ("no significant negative impacts on health and the
environment") set out in 7th EAP. Sweden warmly welcomes a revitalization of the negotiations.
There is, however, still a need for some improvements of the current proposal. In the text below we
focus on the issues in articles 4 to 9, with corresponding annexes, that were discussed at
WPE NECD on 19 February. We are still reviewing the proposed delegated acts and will send
comments on these at a later stage.
Article 4
Ceiling for methane
As a short-lived climate pollutant as well as an important precursor for ground-level ozone it is an
important signal to include methane in the air pollution mitigation strategy. Reducing emissions of
ozone precursors in order to protect the environment and human health against ground level ozone
is an important objective of the NEC Directive. Today there is no legislation which directly limits
emissions of methane in the EU. Methane is covered by the Kyoto protocol as one of six
greenhouse gases, but MS has no obligation to reduce or limit methane emissions specifically.
Sweden therefore supports the proposal of including a ceiling for methane in the NEC Directive.
Linear trajectory and interim target for 2025
Sweden is in favor of aiming for a linear trajectory of emission reductions as well as for an interim
target for 2025. Keeping record of and maintaining a linear trajectory of emission reductions
between 2020 and 2030 is important to make sure that Member States are on the right track. This
would ensure that mitigation measures are in place in good time before 2030, which is essential if
the commitments are to be reached. The linear trajectory should be determined by the emission
ceiling levels in 2020 and 2030 and not by the actual development of national emission. Sweden
supports that this is a soft requirement. It is nevertheless important that there are requirements that
ensure that Member States, in case of risk of the 2030-target not being reached, clearly can explain
how, by means of actions and measures, those target will be met. This in order to safe guard the
fulfillment of the 2030-targets.
6661/15 ADD 1
ANNEX
CM/nv
DG E 1A
LIMITE
2
EN
Article 5
Flexibility
Sweden accepts flexibilities following the revised Gothenburg protocol (relative ceilings and adjustment
mechanism) even though relative ceilings would be sufficient flexibility in itself. The adjustment
mechanism for emission inventories will in our view add additional administrative burden on Member
States as well as on the Commission. Those resources should preferably be used on mitigation measures.
Regarding the possibility to offset emission reductions achieved by international maritime traffic we are
cautiously positive but there are numbers of issues that needs to be clarified. For example, it is not clear
how MS would demonstrate and control that the offset only applies to new and/or additional measures.
The treatment of existing and already planned SECAs and NECAs needs to be clarified. If already
implemented measures would be accounted for there is a risk that the actual emission reductions would
be smaller than without this flexibility and hence we would miss the environmental benefits intended.
Furthermore, Sweden is negative towards any extra flexibility such as the so called “pollutant swapping”
that was presented in September 2014 (report TSAP#15). The pollutant swapping would increase
administrative burden as well obscure the possibility to evaluate commitments as well as health and
environmental effects in a transparent fashion.
Article 6
National Air Pollution Control Programme
Sweden supports the Commission´s proposal for so called National air pollution control
programmes. This is an important component to ensure implementation of the directive. We also
support to have a biannual update of these national programmes. Since the update to a large extent
depend on the update of national projections Sweden notes that the cycle of updates for national
programmes and national projections should be synchronised in time.
Article 6, para 2 (b) contains a reference to “air quality objectives”. To us, it is not clear what
objectives (short or long term objectives, Environmental Quality Standards or others) that are
intended with this reference. We would therefore find it useful to specify which objectives the
paragraph refers to or at least get an explanation from the Commission on the choice of wording in
this respect.
Annex III part 1
An important principle of the NEC Directive is that it is incumbent on Member States themselves to
decide how to attain the emission ceilings. Of course, all relevant sectors should be included to
achieve the emission ceilings in the most cost-efficient way. Since the conditions for achieving the
goals differ between Member States measures should be taken on national level. This is essential in
order to allow Member States to deploy the most cost-effective measures across sectors. Therefore
it must be clear in the text that it is not mandatory to use the emission reductions in part 1 of
Annex III.
6661/15 ADD 1
ANNEX
CM/nv
DG E 1A
LIMITE
3
EN
Annex III part 2
It is both time consuming and technically difficult to evaluate impacts of different policies and
measures on emission reductions and environmental effects and their associated uncertainties.
Sweden would prefer that the information under subpara “b” would be included in the national
programmes only where available, which would provide for the following amendment.
b)
the policy options considered to meet the emission reduction commitments for 2020 and 2030
onwards and the intermediate emission levels determined for 2025 and to contribute to
further improve the air quality, and their analysis, including the method of analysis; where
available, the individual or combined impacts of the policies and measures on emission
reductions, air quality and environment; and the associated uncertainties;
Article 7-9
Reporting – emission inventories and projections
Sweden supports the idea of correlating reporting obligations in the new NEC Directive with
reporting obligations for climate as well as CLRTAP as far as possible. We support a biannual
update of projected emissions but would prefer a longer cycle of 4 years for update of spatially
disaggregated emissions and large point source inventories. A more frequent reporting of
projections is motivated since the projections are a crucial input for national mitigation strategies as
well as evaluation and conditions for underlying assumptions may change quite significantly
between years.
Sweden would like to see that the projections are further coordinated with the present biannual
climate projections where “Those projections shall include quantitative estimates for a sequence of
four future years ending with 0 or 5 immediately following the reporting year.” Sweden sees no
need in calculating projections every year between year x and 2030.
However, we would like to ask the Commission for the purpose of reporting preliminary emission
data. We would also like to know what level of quality this preliminary data should have, in relation
to preliminary reporting of greenhouse gases in the UNFCCC.
Sweden supports most of the requirements for preparing and reporting on emission inventories and
projections set out in Annex IV. However, part I, point 3 requires that Member States report
emissions that are consistent with energy balances reported to Eurostat. Sweden is of the view that
it will be difficult to fulfill this requirement. We therefore propose to either delete this requirement
from the annex, or to reformulate it as follows:
“For emissions from transport, Member States should calculate and report emissions as consistent
as possible with national energy balances reported to Eurostat.”
6661/15 ADD 1
ANNEX
CM/nv
DG E 1A
LIMITE
4
EN
Monitoring – Annex V
Sweden also supports the bulk of monitoring requirements set out in Annex V. Though, it is not
clear either in the proposed text or in the Impact Assessment on what grounds these specific
monitoring requirements, out of the more exhaustive list in the LRTAP convention, were selected
for inclusion in the directive. Sweden would therefore like to get an explanation from the
Commission about this.
It is important that even though the annex refers to sites this does not call for measurements in all
situations, but that the use of modelled estimates also would be a possibility. This is especially
important where emission levels are low which may result in larger uncertainty and where
measurements would not be motivated from an economic point of view.
6661/15 ADD 1
ANNEX
CM/nv
DG E 1A
LIMITE
5
EN