Final warning to Denmark over intensive agricultural installations - EU - The directive on Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC),[3] one of the major pieces of EU environmental legislation on industrial emissions, regulates the operations of large industrial and agricultural installations with a high pollution potential.

These installations must have operating permits which set limits on their emissions to the air, water and land in an ‘integrated’ way taking account of all three media. In the agricultural sector, the permit requirement applies to factory farms with places for more than 40,000 poultry birds, 2,000 pigs or 750 sows.

Denmark’s legislation to implement the directive does not operate on the concept of places, as required by the directive, but instead specifies the number of livestock units and a calculation factor. The Commission considers that the Danish system does not transpose the directive’s requirements with the necessary legal certainty and accuracy and could lead to some pig or poultry installations not being covered even though they fall under the directive.

For this reason the Commission has decided to send Denmark a final written warning that it is infringing the IPPC Directive. If it does not receive a satisfactory response the Commission may decide to take the case to the European Court.

Source: European Commission - 12th January 2005