Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-05-13-Speech-2-285"
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"en.20030513.13.2-285"2
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". – Mr President, I thank the Commission, all Members, and the industry and user groups who have taken an interest in this subject and who have sent me many contributions about their problems, suggestions as to how they might be resolved and the difficulties with the original proposal.
If the Commission was honest it would agree that the original proposal it presented to this House had many problems, particularly related to the retrospective element of the proposals. I come from a country where it is generally regarded that retrospective law is bad law, that people should always have the certainty of knowing under what rules and regulations they perform their duties. To make something retrospective and apply to what has happened in the past is bad. Thankfully we have managed, between us, to agree to remove virtually all of the retrospective elements from this legislation. The process of going through it has been helpful to many.
We have improved the comitology proposals, we have improved the proposals relating to craft built for own use. We have put in proposals from the Verts/ALE Group on biodegradable oils and we have satisfied user groups and the industries by putting forward the 3dB noise allowance. The outcome from virtually all sides has been satisfactory. I have received emails in the last few days from the user groups saying that they are relatively satisfied, and also from the industry saying that it is relatively satisfied. As long as the Commission is relatively satisfied, that really is an incredible outcome.
Within the legislation, the Commission is asked to produce further reports. I would warn the Commission about the danger of over-regulation in this sector. The proposals were originally produced to reduce the emissions from recreational craft. Recreational craft in the European Union account for 0.5% of all emissions. With this proposal we would see a substantial reduction in that fraction of emissions. I hope that the Commission will bear in mind that it will come up against the law of diminishing returns if it tries to regulate even further in this sector. The large amount of cost and inconvenience that would be involved for users to produce even smaller fractional improvements in environmental performance would be very difficult to justify.
In the field of in-use compliance testing, the Commission has also been asked to produce proposals. Bearing in mind that many Member States – I am thinking particularly of Finland here – have thousands of small boats on very remote and inaccessible lakes, when and if it brings forward proposals for a system of in-use compliance testing, I hope that the Commission will bear in mind the difficulty of implementing them in many Member States. I hope that it will also bear in mind that the improvements in environmental performance that it wishes to bring about will be very fractional and may not justify the large amounts of cost and inconvenience for all concerned.
After those few, relatively negative comments, let me thank the Commission for its help in producing these proposals. I thank all those Members – none of whom have turned up – for their contributions. We have reached a satisfactory outcome for all concerned. I commend the proposal to the House."@en1
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