PURPOSE: to conclude, on behalf of the Union, the Minamata Mercury Convention.
PROPOSED ACT: Council Decision.
ROLE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: Council may adopt the act only if the European Parliament has approved it.
BACKGROUND: the Minamata Convention on Mercury, adopted in Kumamoto on 10 October 2013, was signed on behalf of the European Union, subject to its conclusion at a later date. Its objective is to protect human health and the environment from anthropogenic emissions and releases of mercury and mercury compounds. The convention must now be approved.
Mercury is a substance that is characterised by its transboundary nature. Action at global level is necessary to ensure the protection of people and the environment within the Union, in addition to internal measures.
As a follow-up to the Seventh Environmental Action Programme and the 2005 Community Strategy on Mercury (revised in 2010), the Council wishes to reaffirm its commitment to the overall objective of protecting human health and the environment from releases of mercury and its compounds by minimising and eventually eliminating, on a global scale, anthropogenic releases of mercury to air, water and soil. The Minamata Convention contributes to the achievement of these objectives.
CONTENT: The draft Council Decision on the conclusion of the Minamata Convention on Mercury aims at the approval, on behalf of the European Union, of the Minamata Mercury Convention.
The Convention provides for a framework for the control and limitation of the use of mercury and its compounds and the anthropogenic emissions and releases of these substances into air, water and soil in order to protect human health and the environment.
For more details on the content of the Convention, see the summary of the initial legislative proposal dated 2.2.2016.