Issues concerning the implementation of the CCS Directive in the Netherlands

In June 2009, the EU Directive on the Geological Storage of Carbon Dioxide entered into force. The European Member states are obliged to transpose the directive in their national legislations no later than 25 June 2011. The EU legislator has applied a regime of minimum harmonisation when drafting the CCS Directive, amongst others to achieve that an agreement could be reached on the CCS Directive by a majority of Member States. In other words; Member States have considerable discretionary powers while implementing the Directive. The CO2 Storage Directive is mainly transposed into Dutch legislation by means of adaptation of the Dutch Mining Act. There are, however, still some issues in the implementation of this directive that need further clarification. The way these issues are addressed may impact the deployment of large-scale CO2 capture and storage (CCS) in the Netherlands and Europ