On behalf of the Steering Committee, I have the honor to welcome you to the third conference.

The year 2002 came along with important news and decisions:

• On the legal side: several additional countries published their position about the ELV's European Directory.
  
• On the economical side: the ELV's depollution costs became more precise due to the operators experiences gained with their recent practice.
  

In order to launch and to feed the forthcoming discussions, I would like to present today's position of the Belgian Confederation of Recycling (COBEREC) about its ELV’s treatment organization.

Two years of operation with the Belgian transcription of the EU Directory gives us some early conclusions about the real problems we are all going to face in the near future in Europe:

• The creation of certified depollution centers is a big investment and the dismantlers and shredders are reluctant to take such an investment decision.
  
• 15 depollution centers are now open
  in Belgium, but they treat only 20% of
  the ELV flow, which means about 60000 ELV's for 2002. Those 15 centers are designed for a total capacity of nearly 200000 ELV's per year. They are consequently in poor economic situation, missing too much feed.
  
• The export of ELV's to foreign countries is booming, in spite of the Belgium ELV’s definition and the European prohibitions of waste export.
  

In order to solve these problems, we need the creation of an organized control (police) to enforce this new regulation.

The European governments must understand that the EU Directory implies immediate expenses, and that the thousands of small companies acting in the field of ELV today are not voluntarily willing to support these expenses. They are not willing to change anything at all in their well-known and well-mastered business.

All this must be put to an end, because it highly affects the financial equilibrium of the companies already acting according to the law:

• The European Commission must give a precise definition of the ELV, common to everybody among the countries.
  
• The EU must act with strength in order to apply the existing regulations in the field of waste export. Naturally, we need to secure our business, but above all we need to secure a major source of raw material, which represents 40% of the European steel production.
  
• The national governments must set a fair control on their recycling operators.
  

This is the only possible way to guarantee a fair competition between the operators and to obtain the upgrading of our recycling industries for our federation's proper pride.

Much work remains to be done before we reach the ambitious aims of the ELV Directory.

To find a new equilibrium in this business means actions, and to act correctly, we need to discuss and exchange our experiences.

I wish you a fruitful conference!


Antoine VANDEPUTTE
President of the GALLOO Group

President of the Belgian Federation
of the ferrous and non-ferrous recycling companies (FERM-VORM)
Deputy-Administrator of COBEREC
(Belgian Confederation of Recycling)