The Directive on Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC Directive) as adopted in 1996 was to be transposed by the Member States by 1999. The Accession Countries are obliged to transpose and implement the directive before joining the European Union. Germany and other Member States are assisting the Accession Countries in the pre-accession process. This Ecologic report, entitled "Economic Aspects of the Implementation of the IPPC Directive in Germany - An analysis against the background of the situation in the Czech Republic", made up part of this assistance.

The European Directive Concerning Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC Directive) as adopted in 1996 should have been transposed by the Member States by 1999. As a precondition for accession, the Accession Countries, e.g. the Czech Republic, are obliged to transpose and implement the directive before joining the European Union. Germany and other Member States are assisting the Accession Countries in the pre-accession process. The report prepared by Ecologic in this project is part of this assistance. The report analyses the provisions of the IPPC Directive relating to economic aspects of the transposition. It discusses the legal and administrative situation concerning licensing of installations of environmental relevance in the industrial sector, and the necessities of amendment within German law. The state of the transposition and the special situation in the new Länder of Germany, are also discussed. As this report aims to focus on economic aspects in regard to the transposition, their relevance to industrial environmental protection in Germany is addressed. It examines the impact of the implementation of the IPPC Directive on individual industrial sectors in Germany and the methods to assess the costs of the implementation of additional environmental requirements for industrial plants. The objective is to aid the Czech authorities in estimating costs that will occur with transposing the IPPC Directive. Options that might be used by the Czech Republic in order to reduce the costs of implementing the directive are addressed. Furthermore, a brief presentation of the implementation of the IPPC Directive in the United Kingdom is given for comparison purposes.