the authorisation shall lay down emission standards with regard to discharges of any such substance into the waters referred to in Article 1 and, where this is necessary for the implementation of this Directive, to discharges of any such substance into sewers.

When considering proposals to construct new facilities or significantly modify existing facilities using processes that release chemicals listed in this Annex, priority consideration should be given to alternative processes, techniques or practices that have similar usefulness but which avoid the formation and release of such chemicals.

When considering proposals to construct new facilities or significantly modify existing facilities using processes that release chemicals listed in this Annex, priority consideration should be given to alternative processes, techniques or practices that have similar usefulness but which avoid the formation and release of such chemicals.

1. Taking into account, in particular, the precautionary principle, the objective of this Regulation is to protect human health and the environment from persistent organic pollutants by prohibiting, phasing out as soon as possible, or restricting the production, placing on the market and use of substances subject to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, hereinafter ‘the Convention’, or the 1998 Protocol to the 1979 Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution on Persistent Organic Pollutants, hereinafter ‘the Protocol’, and by minimising, with a view to eliminating where feasible as soon as possible, releases ...[+++] of such substances, and by establishing provisions regarding waste consisting of, containing or contaminated by any of these substances.

The proposal obliges Member States to develop and maintain release inventories and National Action Plans designed to identify, characterise and reduce the releases of these substances, as laid down in the Stockholm Convention.

For substances included in the first list of priority substances, in the absence of agreement at Community level six years after the date of entry into force of this Directive, Member States shall establish environmental quality standards for these substances for all surface waters affected by discharges of those substances, and controls on the principal sources of such discharges, based, inter alia, on consideration of all technical reduction options.