Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-02-25-Speech-3-152"
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"en.20040225.11.3-152"2
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"Mr President, I would also like to congratulate Mrs Frahm on her excellent report and also those involved in reaching a compromise. As my colleague Mrs Schörling pointed out, persistent organic pollutants – POPs – are chemical substances that persist in the environment. They accumulate through the food chain and they pose a risk not just to the environment but also to human health, causing adverse human health effects. These pollutants, as has been mentioned, can cross borders: they can end up far from where they originated, and indeed they have been found in areas where they have never been used, so there is a serious threat to the environment here.
The European Community and all the Member States have signed the Protocol to the regional UNECE Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution on POPs, in 1998, and the global Stockholm Convention on POPs in 2001. While all Member States have signed both of these, many states, including my own, have not yet ratified them. I The Environmental Protection Agency in Ireland is setting in place measures to have them ratified, and I welcome that.
While most of the listed POPs are not produced or used in the Community, there is still the problem that legislation does not prevent them being placed on the market. As Mrs Frahm pointed out, the change of the legal basis is very important in relation to ensuring that this is an issue of public health and the environment: it is not just an internal market issue.
Lindane was a substance used in shampoo to get rid of nits in children's hair. Many parents did not realise that the continual use of something like that, which contained a serious chemical, affected their children, and many people even within this Parliament have actually used these shampoos. There was no warning in relation to what the effects would be, and as has been pointed out, little is known about what the long-term true effects are, despite the fact that these POPs have been found in our bodies.
This report is very welcome; the work done on the issue by Mrs Frahm is something for which we must congratulate her. I am also very glad to hear that the Irish presidency has been very constructive on this issue and in trying to help to get this package through, and that is also to be welcomed."@en1
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