EU initiative on the control of major accident hazards arising from pipelinesEU initiative on the control of major accident hazards arising from pipelines Peer-Reviewed Journal Publication Δημοσίευση σε Περιοδικό με Κριτές 2015-11-111999enThe European Council and the Parliament recognised that pipeline accidents had occurred in Europe and worldwide, which clearly indicated the `major accident hazard' potential of pipelines. The present paper presents an overview of the Community Policy on the control of major accident hazards arising from pipelines, summarises the Commission review/assessment of existing legislation on pipelines within the Member States and outlines the principles on which a possible EU initiative should be based. The review has shown that many Member States do not have comprehensive `major accident hazard' legislation in place for pipelines and therefore an EU initiative would complete existing industrial risk management legislation, based on the `precautionary principle'.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries12185-90 Papadakis Georgios Παπαδακης Γεωργιος Porter Sam Wettig Jürgen Elsevier Pipelines--Failures pipeline failures pipelines failures