Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-01-16-Speech-2-165"
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"en.20010116.9.2-165"2
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". – Mr President, I should like again to thank all the Members of the European Parliament for their statements. I could not agree more with most of what you have said, except for any accusation of complacency. May I remind you that, as of today, 45% of all the complaints are on environmental issues and cases – 700 complaints, 30% of the infringements – about 400 – are on environmental cases. So there is a heavy burden on us and we are trying to do our best but also look to the future. That is why I am saying that we also have to look out for new instruments and ways to do more.
Mr Sacconi's point was that we need the good examples of what economic gains can be made from complying with environmental legislation. We could do more on that. We could do more with the use of indicators because we have to measure. We have to be better at assessing the results of compliance with environmental legislation. We are most effective when we have a good and effective interplay between the institutions, while not denying the fact that Member States are responsible. They have to give us answers and provide us with information. We do not have the means to send people to all the Member States to check. We cannot do that unless you give me another 500 people.
What we have to do is modernise legislation. It has been said that we need less but better legislative proposals. I agree with that. The easiest way is the limit-value approach, to say 50 mgs of nitrates for example in drinking water. But this cannot apply in other far-reaching directives of a broader scope, such as the habitats directive. It is no coincidence that the habitats and nitrates directives are chosen as examples of bad compliance because they are very far-reaching. They are ambitious directives and in some cases it means the Member States need to review fully their agricultural practices. We know this from some of the Member States. This should not be taken as an excuse, but an explanation of why these directives are cited for lack of implementation.
I totally agree with Mr Sjöstedt that it is not because these directives are not good or ambitious enough. They are far-reaching and there are consequences for the Member States which they perhaps did not realise when the decisions were taken. We must not give in now, we have to carry on because we will finally start to see results. What we have done, which is very effective, is to establish the link between European funding and compliance with environment legislation. We have to draw on that.
We can do more on education and information. We have started activities like this. We use our experts to go to Member States or to carry out seminars to teach the Member States how to best implement it. We try to use all these available instruments to improve implementation. In an enlarged and more diverse Union, clear and legally binding targets, as well as education and methods for measuring, monitoring and calculating results, become more and more important. I hope for the European Parliament's support and backing in our further attempts to improve the implementation of our European Community environmental legislation."@en1
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