Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-12-11-Speech-1-076"
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"en.20061211.14.1-076"2
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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today’s debate marks the last stage on a long road, a road leading ultimately to a great leap forward for health, for the environment, and – let me specifically add – for the competitiveness of European industry. I do indeed hope that this great project will set standards for the whole world in terms of environmental and health policy. We owe our having got so far not least to your House’s great dedication and influence, and we are particularly indebted to Mr Sacconi, who has shown himself to be a great negotiator and to have a tremendous knowledge of the subject. I would also like to thank Mr Florenz, the chairman of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, who has guided us through the trilogue, which was an extremely difficult and sometimes laborious process, as well as Mrs Ek, the rapporteur for the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy for her valuable contribution and Mr Nassauer, the rapporteur for the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection; both of them played a key role.
Your House has left its unmistakable mark on the results put before us today, and I would be the first to say that they represent an improvement over that which went before. That has mainly been accomplished through the strengthening of the approval systems and the offering of bigger incentives for the replacement of those substances for which suitable alternatives exist. I should also like to reiterate that the use of substitutes for substances where suitable alternatives are available is economically advantageous. Doing so is not to our detriment but to our benefit. I am also very happy to see that it has proved possible, in the course of deliberations, to take greater account of the need to protect animals, for one of the aspects of REACH that I really did find problematic was that it would lead to much more use being made of tests on animals, when quite enough of this is being done already, but I can here and now take up Mr Davies’ question from the previous debate and say that the way in which REACH will be implemented will certainly be determined by the end objective of bringing about a really substantial reduction in experiments on animals. We have improved the information with which consumers are provided, while your House was, at the same time, aware of the need for consideration to be given to the concerns and interests of those on the other side, namely the hundreds and thousands of small and medium-sized businesses that will be obliged to apply REACH.
The belief that REACH would be a problem for large-scale industry in Europe was always a misconception, albeit one propagated by some environmental organisations. European heavy industry has no problem whatever with REACH, whether with the form in which it was produced then, or with the form in which it exists now, but it has always been problematic for small and medium-sized enterprises, whose ability to compete – indeed, whose ability to survive at all – will be jeopardised if we are not very careful indeed to consider what they can take and what not. It is for that reason that the changes made are extremely significant, not only as regards the verification requirements for substances produced in small quantities, but also the enhanced incentives for the shared use of data for the purposes of registration and the improved protection of intellectual property rights.
The Commission believes that a balance between competitiveness on the one hand and necessary advances on the health and environment front, on the other, has been achieved, and it is for that reason that it endorses the proposal that is before you today. It follows that the Commission also endorses the amendments on which Mr Sacconi’s proposal is based.
Permit me to conclude by saying that there is something else on which I am in agreement with Mr Sacconi. We may well be about to achieve our objective, that being the adoption of this law, but that does not mean – far from it, indeed – that the difficulties have been overcome; it may well be that we have yet to come up against most of them, for this will be an act, the implementation of which will still demand a great deal of attention, creativity and energy. I would like to point out that we now have to ensure that the Agency in Helsinki is got up and running without delay, and the main problem with that has to do with the processing of data. It must be ensured that the implementing regulations are brought into effect soon and that the parties affected should be made aware without delay of what they have to do; above all, we have to ensure that those who will have to be guided by REACH know how this is to work in practice. The Commission has already started to do more to prepare small and medium-sized enterprises by supplying them with more extensive information, so that they know just what is going to happen. Ultimately – since what we are dealing with here is a directive – we must take care that no new problems and complications result from it being implemented in different ways in different Member States, and I ask for your House’s help also in that which now has to be done. If we continue to work together on this in future, I am convinced that we will surely succeed in creating a model for the realisation of our European concept, combining a strong, high-performing and job-maintaining industrial base with high standards – the highest possible standards for the environment and the health of our fellow citizens."@en1
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