Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-02-03-Speech-4-008"
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"en.20000203.1.4-008"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, reading the leaflets which have been distributed in recent weeks, one would think that we were talking about the ultimate environmental catastrophe or the death of the car industry in Europe. Neither is correct. We simply must realise that the directive on the table is a sound directive. It means ecological progress for Europe, and we can be proud of ourselves if we succeed in enacting it and setting it in motion.
All the same, there is one point on which we are in conflict. In the grand scheme of the directive, it is perhaps a minor point, but nevertheless a disputed one. It concerns the issue of recycling costs. Here we find ourselves fundamentally at odds with last year's debate in the Council when freedom from costs for the last owner and the issue of financing were lumped together and a question mark placed over whether the last owner should really be free from costs. Last February in this House we unambiguously decided (and we Social Democrats are sticking to this) that the matter of freedom from costs for the last owner is not open to question!
So who will pay for the vehicles which are to be disposed of? For us this is straightforward: in the case of new vehicles it should be the manufacturer since this will also compel manufacturers to design and build recyclable cars. And what about vehicles which are already on the road? Let us look at an example. Rover in Great Britain, if they were responsible for all end-of-life cars, would actually be responsible for 5.8 million cars within the European Union and would immediately have to set aside EUR 250 million against recycling costs, whereas a manufacturer from Korea building similar cars would only have to shell out peanuts, as a representative of Deutsche Bank put it. Such distortions in competition are not about environmental protection; they simply affect investment potential and the jobs of those building cars in Europe. Consequently, for end-of-life vehicles we propose setting up a fund to cover the costs of recycling end-of-life vehicles in order to safeguard the principle of freedom from costs.
I can understand it when colleagues from countries which do not build cars advocate that manufacturers should pay the full whack and that they are not interested in the problem of distortions in competition when it comes to setting aside funds. However, I would ask these colleagues to show solidarity with the more than 2 million people who make a living from building cars in Europe, so that these jobs can be secured in the future. I am in favour of stringent environmental requirements, as you know from the auto-oil programme and the debate on exhaust emissions, but I believe that they should be the same for everyone!"@en1
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