There will be a total ban on the export of hazardous waste to Third World countries from 1 January 1998. This morning, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection adopted a compromise amendment by which all hazardous waste will be put on a EU hazardous waste list. In November 1995, Parliament decided to refer the proposal back to the Committee, after the Environment Commissioner Ritt Bjerregaard declared she could not totally accept an amendment asking for the strictest interpretation of the laws and for a ban on the export of ALL hazardous waste.
Rapporteur Ivar VIRGIN (Sw., EPP) and the Commission worked out a compromise amendment, that satisfies Parliament's repeated requests to stop the export of all hazardous waste and not only the hazardous waste streams mentioned in the amber and red lists of the annexes III and IV of Regulation 259/93 on the shipment of waste. The compromise amendment puts all hazardous waste streams of the EC hazardous waste list, which do not appear in the red and amber list on a special separate annex IIa to this Regulation. Consequently, export of these waste streams will also be banned from 1 January 1998. The VIRGIN report will be voted next week in plenary in Strasburg. (A4-0267/95).
The stricter application of the export rules is in line with the Basel Convention seeking to ensure an international ban.
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