30/05/2008
After months of negotiations, the European Parliament and Council reached a second reading agreement on 21 May on banning mercury exports and imports. Exports will now be prohibited from 15 March 2011 - three months earlier than proposed by the Council. Mercury is mainly used in the chlor-alkali industry, which has undertaken to convert to techniques that are less dangerous to health and the environment.

The text, a regulation that will directly apply into the EU's 27 national legal systems, will now be forwarded to environment ministers for a final rubber-stamping at a meeting on 5 June.

The compromise includes adding two compounds – mercurous chloride and mercuric oxide – to the list of substances banned for export, according to a statement by the European Commission. It also brings forward the export ban and storage obligations to March 2011, a few months earlier than originally planned.Exports of mercury mixtures will now also be banned if the other component contains at least 95% of the substance.

However, demands by the European Parliament to impose a ban on mercury imports were rejected as impractical. And calls to extend the scope of the export ban to mercury-containing products already prohibited in the EU were also dismissed.

On the storage aspect, it was agreed that mercury waste should be kept "in a way that is safe for human health and the environment" before eventually being disposed of. Such places include abandoned salt mines, deep underground hard rock formations or specific safe storage facilities above the ground. But to the disappointment of environmental groups, permanent underground disposal of liquid mercury will still be a possibility.