According to the new progress report of the European Commission, the EU officially adopted a specification for persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in 2004, which can be regarded as a major achievement, especially after a long period of controversy; its specification is mainly: Reduce the content of harmful substances such as Dioxins, Furans and PCBs. Each country must publish a product catalog and improvement plan, which are the basic tools for the 2004 POPs specification (EED 07/06/04) to require minimum releases of dioxin, furans and polychlorinated biphenyls. Some Member States have already adopted this improvement plan, while others are still in the process of preparation. At the beginning of this year, the Commission adopted an EU-level improvement plan (EED 27/03/07) to implement POPs regulations. It emphasizes the need to properly enforce existing laws to suppress substances such as dioxin, furans and polychlorinated biphenyls, such as the well-established Pollution Prevention and Control Act (IPPC) and the Waste Structures Directive. POPs are also considered the best technical reference documents for review under the IPPC directive, and two new POPs obsolete specifications (EED 27/02/07 and EED 12/07/06) were also adopted last year. The progress report also celebrates a new industrial emissions data register with lower reporting thresholds for substances such as dioxin, furans and polychlorinated biphenyls (EED 06/02/06). But it also mentioned that in Europe
