Brief review of amendments in environmental permitting law, Albanian Prepared by: Klodian Aliu Environmental expert 01 March 2016
1. Review of the amendments in the environmental permitting law The law on environmental permitting was prepared from an EU financed project1and adopted in Parliament in 20112. This is the first law for environmental permitting in Albania. This new law aligned with several directives but the main included, IPPC3 and LCP4 Directives and other related directives5 regulating the environmental emissions (VOC Directive). 2. Amendments of the law So far the law has been amended two times. The first amendment is made by law no. 44/20136 dated 14.2.2013 to align the penalties with the new law for inspections in Albania7. Meanwhile the MoE during March – May 2014 has introduced the second change adopted by Council of Ministers in 23 April and Parliament by law no 60/2014 dated 19.06.20148. This amendment has tackled only the list of activities subject to the environmental permit in two ways:
Introducing additional activities from those listed from the INPAEL project experts Changing the thresholds of several activities shifting the permit types mainly from type C (REA competence) to Type B (NEA competence)
3. 2014 amendment results include: Introduces 12 new activities. These activities were excluded during drafting the permitting law as not of significant environmental concern. Centralizes the decision making from REAs to NEA by reducing the REA competences with 18 activities ; Increases the procedural timeframe since type C approval time is two weeks meanwhile type B review procedure is five weeks. Increases the tariff paid for the review to the MoE (from circa € 75 for Type C to € 210 for type B application) Hampers the smooth implementation of the law since the initial draft of the law and application forms were well studied for fitting activities. In practical terms, technically is very difficult or even impossible to fill an application format designed for activity type B for an activity under type C. It has to be stated that the list of activities under type C are of routine practice without any project management process in this context lack of necessary data and information required from application forms for type B. Type B activities require Environmental Management and Monitoring Plans, EIA report and procedure and other standard documents for activities with significant environmental impact. 4. Conclusions 1
Implementation of National Plan for Approximation of Environmental Legislation CARDS 2006 (EU Ref: No. 124909/C/SER/AL) Law no 10448 dated 14.7.2011 “on the environmental permitting” The IPPC-directive (directive concerning integrated pollution prevention and control, 96/61/EG, codified 2008/1/EG) 4 Directive 2001/80/EC on the limitation of emissions of certain pollutants into the air from large combustion plants, as amended by Directive 2009/31/EC 5 All this directives were repealed and substituted with IED Directive adopted on 24 November 2010 entered into force on 6 January 2011 and had to be transposed by Member States by 7 January 2013. 6 Ligj, Nr.44/2013, Dt.Aktit:14.02.2013, Dt.Miratimit:14.02.2013, Flet.Zyrtare Nr.30, Faqe:1243 7 Ligji nr. 10433, datë 16.6.2011 "Për inspektimin në Republikën e Shqipërisë". 8 Ligj, Nr.60/2014, Dt.Aktit:19.06.2014, Dt.Miratimit:19.06.2014, Flet.Zyrtare Nr.109, Faqe:4205 2 3
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The IPPC Directive is repealed with several others since 2010 by the IE Directive. The IED does not cities flexibility regarding new additional activities or thresholds but allows competent authorities some flexibility to set less strict emission limit values for the industrial activities. The competent authority shall always document its justification for granting such derogations. The aim of the directive is to establish unified rules and investments conditions among EU countries with fair competition. The additional activities are not scope of IED and not of industrial profile and with no emissions and regulated norms. Such amendment is a turn back practice, made without any specific reliable study and it is a threat for the adopted legislation drafted with EU assistance and expertise. For such legislation it shall be mandatory for the Government to ask and take no objection to EUD for future changes of such legislation. A Regulatory Impact assessment shall be required in such cases. The NEA capacities for implementation of the environmental permitting system remains very limited. Additional activities further reduce such capacities and weakness of NEA. Meanwhile shifting of type C to type B beside the technical obstacles attacks the decentralization of the environmental decision-making and hampers the cooperation with the operators. The law on permitting requires a yearly implementation report from MoE but so far no report was complied. Following the procedural documents of the recent change there are inconsistencies about the justification of such change. The MoE justification report do not cites that additional activities will be introduced and that such activities are not scope of IED (but the contrary that the change is in line with it). In such situation considering the technical nature of the law it is likely that MoE officials have mislead the decision makers such as Council of Ministers, Parliamentary Commissions and Parliament. It should be noted that due to missing a specific application procedure (adopted by DCM 419 date. 25.06.2014 and enforced 09.07 20149) such amendment is made in absence of implementation experience and needs for improving the law. On the other side the penalties burden are raised (type B higher penalty value than type C) and as a result the operators are exposed to pressure and corruption from authorities. Imposing a type B permit conditions for small economic activities not of industrial profile obliges the operators to have always obligations towards the environmental inspectorates. Such obligations includes fictive monitoring and reporting, payment of polluting yearly fee (55% higher for type B than type C) and thus is a continuing loss of energy and incomes without any environmental benefit. Recently one cases of such threat were made public from Stop Program at TV Klan. The Head of Tirana REA10 permitting sector was filmed asking for € 3,000 to approve the environmental permit (Type C) for a kebab restaurant. The involved person was dismissed from the MoE and is under prosecution procedure. Another corruption case at the environmental permitting was registered in June 2014; the Director of Environmental Assessment at NEA was arrested in the office for taking € 2,000 for the approval of a waste collection and recycling permit11. Due to some political interventions during drafting of the law and recent changes, the adopted legislation especially the EIA and environmental permitting shall be revised and aligned with EU Directives. Implementation of these laws is become very complex and almost overbureaucratic to achieve the positive cooperation, trust, engagement and investments from other stakeholders. Assessing the level of compliance with “EU aquis” of such laws (about 8 Directives) requires a specific and professional analysis. Involvement of NLC in the procedure and silent consent is still applied to the environmental permitting law (referred as issue of concerns in several Progress Reports of EC).
http://www.qbz.gov.al/botime/fletore_zyrtare/2014/PDF-2014/105-2014.pdf http://opinion.al/denoncimi-i-stop-kamera-e-fshehte-ja-sa-shitet-nje-leje-mjedisore-ne-qendren-kombetare-te-licensimeve/ http://shqiptarja.com/news.php?IDNotizia=222961
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