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The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc.

The vote was on a proposal from the executive European Commission for adoption by the European Union of Annexes VIII and IX to the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal (COM [98] 0634, Nov. 6, 1998, no Official Journal reference cited).

The annexes relate to earlier decisions by parties to the convention to adopt an amendment prohibiting all exports of hazardous waste for disposal from industrialized nations that are members of the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to non-OECD nations. Parties to the convention also agreed that a similar ban on hazardous wastes intended for recycling should be imposed from Jan. 1, 1998.

The EU enacted unilateral prohibitions based on the convention, the first through Regulation 259/93/EEC on the Supervision and Control of Shipments of Waste Within, Into, and Out of the European Community, which covered final disposal, then through Regulation 120/97/EC, which amended 259/93 and covered the subsequent prohibition on hazardous wastes for recycling. Regulation 120/97 added an annex to Regulation 259/93 that corresponds to the OECD's amber and red lists of wastes.

Environment Committee Criticisms

The Parliament's new vote was taken without debate on the basis of a favorable report from the assembly's Environment Committee. However, the report produced by Austrian deputy Marilies Flemming echoed criticisms made by the Parliament in scrutinizing the 1997 legislation.

Flemming said that, in response to criticisms that recycling industries in developing countries might be damaged by the second prohibition, the Basel Convention's Technical Working Group had been given the task of drafting the new annexes to the convention--an exercise in which they had also relied on OECD listings.

However, inconsistencies still existed as well as "a danger that the legal effect [of the convention] will be deficient because of the complicated wording," wrote Flemming.

Within the OECD, she reported, moves are under way to align the organization's listings with those of the new Basel Convention annexes. For its part, the EU would also have to take "additional steps to achieve international harmonization of the term 'hazardous waste.'"

Flemming cited "particular inconsistencies" between the EU and Basel listings on materials such as wastes from aluminum and zinc metallurgy and used hydraulic fluid.

However, Flemming also pointed out that the Basel prohibition on exports of hazardous wastes to non-OECD countries had not yet attracted sufficient ratifications to come into force. The union should try to persuade other parties to ratify, given that "adoption of the export ban was largely introduced on the union's initiative" and that vulnerable countries remained in need of protection, she said.