Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-10-01-Speech-1-051"
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"en.20011001.4.1-051"2
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". – Madam President, the accident in Toulouse occurred shortly after 10 a.m. on 21 September at the establishment
in Toulouse. This fertiliser plant is owned by Atofina the chemical branch of the Total/Fina/Elf group. Amongst other dangerous substances it held important quantities of liquefied ammonia and chlorine, combustibles, solid ammonium nitrate and fertilisers, as well as methanol.
Let me now come to the follow-up. Just over a week after the accident it is still too early to draw any conclusions. The regulatory committee established under the Seveso II directive, chaired by the Commission and composed of representatives of all Member States is going to meet on 10-12 October to discuss, amongst other things, the accident and its follow-up.
What is the repercussion of the Toulouse accident on the foreseen amendment of the Seveso II directive? You might recall that after the Baia Mare accident, the cyanide spill in Romania in January 2000, I created a task force that presented its final report in December last year. In parallel, after the disastrous fireworks explosion in May 2000 in Enschede in the Netherlands, my services organised two European expert seminars on pyrotechnic and explosive substances. The expertise and the resulting recommendations went into a draft proposal for an amendment to the Seveso II directive, aiming at broadening the scope and covering establishments that were previously not covered.
The draft proposal has undergone a public consultation process involving all stakeholders and was foreseen for adoption by the Commission in September. We should move forward with this amendment. This does not mean we should not take due account of the Toulouse accident. There is indeed one very important aspect that made the consequences of the accidents in Toulouse and Enschede even worse, that is, the proximity of the establishments to inhabited areas.
The new Article 12 on land use planning in the Seveso II directive aims in the long term at the separation of hazardous industrial establishments and inhabited areas or other locations frequented by the public. Although the inclusion of such a provision in Community legislation for the very first time represents a major step forward, the Commission and Member States still have to gain experience with its implementation. Moreover, this provision applies to the planning for new industrial sites, for new housing zones, and does not retroactively apply to existing situations, such as Toulouse, where increasing density of population has led residential areas to continually spread closer to an industrial site that has existed since the 1920s.
In order to assist Member States with the implementation of this provision, a guidance document on land use planning was published in 1999 and plans for a European seminar on land use planning to be hosted by France were already under way before the accident in Toulouse. In the near future my services will increase cooperation with the Member States in order to develop an appropriate legislative and/or non-legislative follow-up to the accidents in the areas of land use planning, harmonisation of generic risk assessment methods and risk mapping.
The effects of what seems to have been a mass explosion of ammonium nitrate were felt far outside the establishment's boundaries. According to the latest reports, 29 people were killed, 30 people are still in hospital in a serious condition and in total around 2400 people were injured. The accident also affected two other chemical plants in the vicinity. It rendered a large number of houses uninhabitable and affected the electricity distribution system. Moreover, the psychological after-effects on the population that first believed it to be a terrorist attack are also important.
This accident is perhaps the worst of its kind in Europe since 1921, when an explosion at the BASF company in Germany claimed the lives of 561 citizens.
Last week a representative of the Total/Fina/Elf group met with the responsible services of my Directorate-General in order to provide detailed information on the accident. Furthermore, the French Ministry of the Environment has provided information to the Commission. However, the exact causes of the accident are still unknown and the three investigations under way by Atofina, the Ministry of the Environment and the Attorney-General might take a long time.
AZF was fully covered by the Seveso II directive, which aims at the prevention of major industrial accidents and the limitation of their consequences for man and the environment. Its classical field of application are chemical plants and storage facilities. The directive obliges the operator of these facilities to put in place a major accident prevention policy, a safety management system and internal emergency plans. He/she has to prepare a safety report and send it to the public control authorities. These authorities have the task of inspecting the site at regular intervals and also of ensuring that its external emergency plans are put in place and tested periodically. Furthermore, the public living in the vicinity of the plant must be informed of the risks arising from the facility and the behaviour in case of an accident.
The directive came into force in 1999 and replaced the original Seveso directive from 1982 that was adopted following major industrial accidents in the 1970s. This was the first piece of Community legislation in the field of industrial risk management. It is no secret that Member States were late with their transposition of the Seveso II directive into national law.
No Member State adopted transposition legislation in time or notified the Commission hereof in time. Therefore the Commission started infringement proceedings against all 15 Member States for non-communication or incomplete communication of transposition measures. In the meantime this resulted in the Commission taking five Member States to the European Court of Justice: Belgium, Austria, Germany, Ireland and Portugal. For France, the Commission decided on 18 July 2001 to apply to the Court for incomplete transposition. However, I want to make it very clear today that the reasons for the Court appeal being launched against France can in no way be related directly to the Toulouse accident in terms of possible infringement of obligations under the Seveso II directive.
At the moment, despite rumours in the press, the Commission has no indication that there was either a deficiency on behalf of the operator managing the plant and complying with Seveso II or on behalf of the French control authorities responsible for inspecting the site.
According to information received from the French Minister for the Environment, risk analysis, including possible accident scenarios, had been carried out by the site operator but these did not include a mass explosion of ammonia nitrate. The last updates were made in 2000 and 2001. A safety management system was in place and the site was inspected about twice a year. The last inspection took place in May 2001. Internal and external emergency plans were in place. A land use planning policy established by the prefect imposed restrictions on all new construction activities in the vicinity of the plant."@en1
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"Grande Paroisse"1
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