The 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＇.