Two of the recent trends in industrial automation are the increasing use of fieldbusses and the handling of PLCs using concepts and tools referring to IEC 1131. The existence of different fieldbusses has caused a conflict for designers and users of industrial automation systems. Even if there is a unique goal for fieldbus use, each fieldbus has to be handled in a very specific way with different tools. The introduction of IEC 1131 into PLC programming and its success was caused by the same situation - providing a solution for handling PLCs from different vendors in a unique way. Today IEC 1131 has become an industrial standard. The integration of the two trends is a very important task to overcome the fieldbus users' conflict. Using techniques defined in IEC 1131, different fieldbus systems can be treated as systems of distributed PLCs. Aspects of this integration process, prerequisites, first solutions, current projects and problems and its importance for future developments are discussed in the paper. The combination of IEC 1131 and fieldbusses will lead to an integrative, unified handling of bus systems, helping to overcome the inconsistencies in the users' view to fieldbusses.