Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-02-25-Speech-3-149"
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"en.20040225.11.3-149"2
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"Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating Mrs Frahm and perhaps by offering a few congratulations to those of ourselves who participated in these negotiations with the Council. We have succeeded in reaching an agreement with the Irish Presidency on this regulation and on the implementation of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants.
There were perhaps not so many people who believed we would reach an agreement, but Mrs Frahm handled the matter extraordinarily well. Even if everything that has been achieved is not ideal and exactly what we should have wanted, it is still perhaps the best that could have been accomplished, given what is possible politically. I am very pleased.
As others have also said, it is important for the regulation now to be implemented as soon as possible, because persistent organic pollutants are in the rogues’ gallery of dangerous chemical substances. They do not break down, but accumulate in our bodies and in the whole food chain. The levels are now so high that they are a danger both to public health and to the eco-systems and their functioning. The objective must be to put a complete stop to the discharges of persistent organic pollutants by banning their production, use and import. We must therefore go further and, in a number of cases, much further than is indicated both by the Stockholm Convention and by the Protocol to the 1979 Convention on Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution. This must also apply to the new Member States that are to join the EU in May of this year. In some cases, requests have been made for exemptions for HCH and lindane, for example, but these cannot under any circumstances be accepted.
I am often very surprised at how difficult it is for the Commission, the Council and perhaps sometimes also Parliament’s more conservative sector to get things through in relation to protecting people’s health and the environment and at the fact that there are repeated delays, postponements and hold-ups. In this area, the precautionary principle must apply fully, meaning too that new substances must be included on the list for banning or controlling these substances.
When it comes to the legal basis, I do not understand the Commission. Nor do I understand why there has to be this kind of debate. The legal basis must be Article 175 of the Treaty establishing the European Community because these decisions are being taken in order to protect people’s health and the environment. The whole of chemicals legislation is, of course, designed to do just that. The fact has also been discussed from Chester onwards that it is because we cannot otherwise protect public health and the environment that we must take sound decisions in terms of a comprehensive and overall view of chemicals legislation.
In conclusion, I think that this agreement with the Council is extremely commendable, as is the fact that we have reached it at first reading, because it is so important that we implement the agreement as soon as possible."@en1
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