The European Community (EC) has agreed upon a Directive to reduce acidifying emissions from large combustion installations. This policy sets emissions standards for new plants and requires an overall reduction in emissions from existing ones. As a result sulfur dioxide emissions in the EC will be reduced by an additional 15% over national legislation. The annual costs of the Directive are estimated at DM 9.2 billion, DM 3.1 billion more than the present national legislation. The area exposed to a sulfur deposition higher than 1 gram will decrease. However, the same emission reductions could have been reached with only DM 6.3 billion of annual costs
