EP Passes New Rules Tackling Industrial and Livestock Pollution

The European Parliament passed a revision of the Industrial Emission Directive (IED) which aims to reduce harmful emissions from industries and pig and poultry farms.

The directive was passed with 393 in favor, 173 against and with 49 abstentions, according to a press release of the European parliament.

This directive regulates air, water and soil pollution from industries and livestock farms, as well as a range of other forms of pollution like noise pollution, waste, how raw materials are used, etc. The IED also sets mandatory water consumption targets.

There were already rules in place regulating livestock farms but the IED will now be extended to farms that fulfill specific criteria and in compliance with the EU’s way of calculating what it calls “livestock units”.

Related to the directive, the parliament also passed a regulation on the Industrial Emissions Portal with a very wide margin.

The purpose of the portal is to improve transparency around the licensing, operation and control of such industrial and farming installations in the EU by enabling citizens to access data on the abovementioned information.

As per the usual process, the law has to be adopted by the Council, published in the EU Official Journal, and then will come into force around 20 days later. EU Member States will only have 22 months to comply with the directive.