Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-12-14-Speech-3-276"
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"en.20051214.18.3-276"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there can be no question that 18 months is a long time for a debate to go on within the Council. Yet this is no time at all in comparison to the service lives of machinery. Speaking as someone who has worked in the field of mechanical engineering for 20 years, I am of course aware of the significance of this directive
in terms of making legislation more consistent. Although many users were initially sceptical, it is my belief that more or less all doubts have now been dispelled. The first letters have arrived from people expressing their approval, and since our aim is to focus on the user and not to ignore public opinion, this approval is important.
This directive is not only important for users, however, but also for millions of consumers, since it contains legal provisions that are of crucial significance for their health and safety. As the Commissioner said, one of the reasons why this revision was necessary was because earlier directives did not go far enough. Further reasons included the need to improve the necessary legal certainty, to define the scope in more detail and to safeguard the free movement of goods at the same time as ensuring a high level of health and safety protection for consumers. This should also be a priority goal for European industrial policy.
I should like to thank the Members of this House and, above all, the Commission and the Council for their excellent cooperation. It was nonetheless necessary for the Social Democrats to incorporate a number of key considerations, and indeed this meant that we had more in common with the Council during most of the rounds of discussion. For example, we want the Commission to develop guidelines to help the Member States to increase their capacities. This would enable effective market surveillance with a view to the uniform application of the directive.
At the same time, however, the Social Democrats also believed that confidentiality and trade secrets must not have a negative impact on personal health and safety. Another of our goals, and one which we have now achieved, was to lighten the burden on SMEs, without affecting the substance of the Directive or imposing additional costs. A further important aim for us was to ensure that the standards for disabled people using lifts were not compromised as a result of the revision of the Directive. We have achieved all these goals. We were opposed to agricultural and forestry tractors not being included, but we accept the Commissioner’s explanation. We would have preferred him to set a date, and to set a date of 2008, but since we will all still be Members of this Parliament at that point we will be able to ensure that the necessary steps are taken.
We do not want to exclude small appliances, Mr Schwab, because it is not just wristwatches that we are talking about, but fire extinguishers and similar small appliances that are relatively dangerous. Nevertheless, I believe that we have achieved a good compromise. The Social Democrats will vote in favour of it, and for once this week I should like to praise the British – and such praise is not something that can be taken for granted – since our cooperation with the British Presidency on this matter has also been excellent."@en1
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