Implementation of the EU CCS Directive in Europe: results and development in 2013

Directive 2009/31/EC of the European Parliament on the geological storage of carbon dioxide, entered into force on June 25th 2009. By the end 2013 the CCS Directive has been fully transposed into national law to the satisfaction of the EC in 20 out of 28 EU Member States, while six EU countries (Austria, Cyprus, Hungary, Ireland, Sweden and Slovenia) had to complete transposing measures. In July 2014 the European Commission closed infringement procedures against Cyprus, Hungary and Ireland, which have notified the EC that they have taken measures to incorporate the CCS Directive into national law. Among other three countries Sweden has updated its legislation and published a new law in their country in March 2014, permitting CO2 storage offshore. The evaluation of the national laws in Poland, which were accepted at national level in November 2013, and Croatia, which entered the EU on 7 July 2013 and simultaneously transposed the CCS directive, is still ongoing in 2014. The first storage permit under the Directive (for the ROAD Project in the offshore Netherlands) has been approved by the EC. While CO2 storage is permitted in a number of European countries, temporary restrictions were applied in Czech Republic, Denmark and Poland. CO2 storage is prohibited except for research and development in Estonia, Finland, Luxembourg, two regions in Belgium and Slovenia due to their geological conditions, but also forbidden in Austraia, Ireland and Latvia. The size of exploration areas for CO2 storage sites is limited in Bulgaria and Hungary. In Germany, only limited CO2 storage will be permitted until 2018 (up to 4 Mt CO2 annually).