Implementation of the Seveso II Directive in Slovenia: Survey of implementation and opinions of operators regarding its safety benefits

摘要

Based on a survey performed in April 2006 - 49 legal entities were contacted, response rate was 63% - we present the status of the implementation of the Seveso II Directive in Slovenia. In addition to compliance analysis the foci of the survey were: (i) evaluation whether the implementation has contributed to safety improvement, (ii) relation between safety performance indicators and Seveso II requirements, and (iii) how operators assess support of competent authorities in the process of achieving compliance. The results show a wide range of general compliance - e.g. 87% for submission of safety report to competent authority but only 45% for making information on safety measures available to the public. The survey also revealed that respondents assigned more credit to reactive, e.g. emergency planning, than to preventive, e.g. MAPP, safety measures. Related to the latter, 65% of respondents think that requirements imposed by the Directive are conceptually strong; however, in real life there is too much paperwork and duplication associated with demonstration of safety. Operators express different levels of satisfaction with the support by competent authorities in the process of achieving compliance and stressed the need for quantitative indicators for measuring/assessing safety performance in the context of the Directive. Like many other previous studies the survey confirmed relevance of risk perception and communication, especially for SMEs, which are lacking resources for comprehensive risk management.