Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-03-14-Speech-2-329"
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"en.20000314.15.2-329"2
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"Mr President, I cannot resist starting by saying it is well-known that my Irish colleague across the way lives in the capital city of Dublin where these sites will not be troubling her too much. Having said that I support the thrust of what is before us here today and the ability of the Commission to use as a carrot-and-stick approach the Structural Funds to encourage in perhaps the most effective way recalcitrant Member States such as Ireland, to get their house in order in relation to the Natura 2000 sites.
No Member State has fully met the requirements of the habitats directive, for example, let alone met them within the legally-binding timetable. Commission procedures are under way against nearly every Member State – 12 Member States in fact – under the habitats directive at the moment. Twelve European countries are before the European Court. The wild birds directive is little better with 13 countries currently facing a legal challenge for failure to comply with the directive 20 years after it was agreed.
It looks as if there are six countries currently at risk for delays or rejections of proposals for the use of Structural Funds, including my own, the UK, certain German Länder, France, Sweden and Belgium. Only last December I raised this issue in the Irish Senate and cited all the various directives – mainly environmental directives – we had failed to transpose within the timetable or years after the deadline for transposition had taken place.
Constitutional challenge is often quoted in Ireland as one of our reasons. Indeed our written constitution with protection for property rights has proved very difficult for the government to get over many of the issues in relation to designation of sites. But with the principle of proportionality well respected, proposals to use the structural funds in this regard will help countries like Ireland to focus on what they actually need to do.
In this regard I have proposed tomorrow two amendments to item 2 and item 3, adding a word: "to ensure that EU-funded programmes do not cause 'unauthorised' damage or destruction to actual or potential protected sites". Perhaps you will take those on board in items 2 and 3 of the motion."@en1
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