Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-09-02-Speech-1-062"
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"en.20020902.6.1-062"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, I, too, would like to thank Mrs Corbey most warmly for the great effort she has put in. She had, apart from anything else, 123 amendments to work through, 35 of which were from my group alone. Let me now also express very warm thanks to Mrs Ayuso González, who managed to achieve a coalition of highly divergent intentions in a most important area. I am referring to Amendment No 45, to which I personally will be giving firm support.
You see, the Packaging Directive has already been transposed in widely divergent ways, and incurred different costs, in the individual Member States, rather than leading to the harmonisation that is required. The maximum rate is therefore meant to prevent the four-speed Europe in this area from drifting even further apart, with even greater distortions of competition being the consequence. Since 1994, the current quotas have been achieved only by Austria, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark, although one has to bear in mind that the Netherlands and Denmark have done so only because they have fully-developed and highly economical systems of waste incineration, whereas Belgium and Germany have managed it through the use of the sort of recovery processes that environmental considerations make less than desirable and which will, indeed, cease to be authorised as a result of a change in definition contained in the proposal for a Directive.
As regards the burden of costs, Austria comes second in Europe, and it is high import levels and the huge problem of freeloaders getting away with not paying their way, especially in the plastics sector, that put Austrian foodstuff production, like, no doubt, that of other States as well, at the greatest competitive disadvantage. As we have said so many times already, we will vote for this draft, but one most specific area seems to me to be in real need of improvement. The Commission proposes that, in addition, the following minimum targets for the recovery of materials contained in packaging waste should be achieved: 60% by weight for glass, 65% by weight for paper, and so on.
With your permission, I will turn to Amendment No 45. The 25% by weight minimum target for the recovery of materials is quite adequate for materials such as glass, paper, carton, metals and plastics. As an Austrian, you see, I have not the slightest problem with it, but we have also learned that, where countries are quite simply not so far advanced, there is no point in giving them targets that they know they will not achieve anyway. I do think it makes more ecological sense to set an objective that is actually capable of being achieved by all Europe's states and economies. We have always made environmental policy with business rather than against it. Only an environmentally responsible market economy will enable us to reach our goal."@en1
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