Report

Subject:                     'Study of the Effectiveness of the Seveso II Directive'

Date of Email:   Wed 24/09/2008

Email Report Detail:

Since the basic structure and main requirements of the Seveso Directive have remained unchanged for over 10 years, the time has come to launch a review of the Directive. To inform that review process the Commission will have several studies conducted to assess the level and quality of practical implementation of the Directive.
As a first step in this exercise, a study ('Study of the Effectiveness of the Seveso II Directive') has recently been completed. The study focuses on:

• the adequacy of the requirements imposed by the Directive to the operators of Seveso II Establishments and the objectives to prevent major accident and mitigate their consequences;
• the real impact of the requirements and the most effective way to measure it;
• the effectiveness of the implementation, in terms of compliance in the various Member States and industrial sectors, and the assessment of possible market distortion.

The main purpose of this study is to provide the Commission with key findings and lessons learnt from the implementation of the main requirements imposed on operators, focussing in particular on those relating to major accident prevention policy, safety reports and internal emergency plans.
The study was run by the European Virtual Institute for Integrated Risk Management, together with LEIA Foundation, INERIS and R-TECH, and was based on a web-based questionnaire(s) and follow-up interviews.

European Commission Seveso Webpage:  http://ec.europa.eu/environment/seveso/index.htm

Additional Documentation:

seveso_report.pdf