Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-04-08-Speech-1-088"
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"en.20020408.7.1-088"2
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"Mr President, the two excellent reports before us are abundant proof of the need for thorough institutional reform integrating the Union’s responsibilities in matters of judicial, criminal and police cooperation, which currently fall under the third pillar, into the Community framework. This European Parliament has been calling repeatedly for this and I hope the Convention on the future of Europe itself and, therefore, the Intergovernmental Conference on reform of the Treaties, will put forward such a proposal. Only thus will it be possible to avoid future counterproductive disputes and institutional conflict, and, most importantly, will we be able to act effectively to protect the citizens of the EU.
Quite clearly, some of these rights – such as the right to a high level of environmental protection and the improvement of the quality of the environment, which is enshrined in Article 37 of the Union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights, are not being adequately safeguarded by the Member States for lack of effective Community intervention. None of the Member States has ratified the 1998 Council of Europe Convention on the protection of the environment through criminal law. Even the many Community directives on the environment fail to provide sufficient protection because of failure to apply them and frequent failure to comply with them encouraged by the lack of effective penalties.
The Commission’s proposal for a directive requiring the Member States to introduce penalties therefore deserves our full support with the incorporation of the useful amendments advocated in the Oomen-Ruijten report. Although the Commission, Parliament and the Council Legal Service itself have, on several occasions, stressed that the protection of the environment is a fundamental Community objective pursuant to Articles 3 and 6 of the Community Treaty, that the proper legal basis for the protection of the environment through criminal law is Article 175 of the Treaty and that Community law prevails over Union law, the Council is attempting to adopt a framework decision on the same subject that does not just integrate the proposal for a directive but interferes with it, limiting its field of application and scope and making the issue no longer subject to the procedure of codecision with the European Parliament. The Di Lello Finuoli report quite rightly states that this framework decision must be consistent with the directive, must wait for it to be promulgated and must refer to it, without repeating points already covered by the directive but, where necessary, incorporating them.
I hope that Parliament will adopt both reports and I call upon all the Members to reflect on the need to avoid similar damaging disputes in the future and to achieve full communitisation of the third pillar."@en1
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