Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-12-11-Speech-1-079"
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"en.20061211.14.1-079"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my supposition is that 99.9% of my group will vote in favour of this compromise put together by Mr Sacconi; If anyone could negotiate this difficult path between Scylla and Charybdis it was probably he – he who was always available for dialogue, who tried to achieve compromise even though he always had his own ideas in his mind, and that compromise is one that is acceptable to large sections of this House and of the European public.
What are we talking about? We are talking about learning something about chemicals of which we are at present ignorant. We are talking about our desire to protect nature, and, above all, the health of those people who use chemicals, whether as consumers or as workers with them. With that end in mind, the compromise is a good one.
A compromise remains, of course, a compromise and nothing more. The best proof of its being a good one is probably that nobody ends up being really satisfied. Mr Sacconi is certainly not one hundred percent happy with it, and nor, as a whole, are we, but, even so, I am persuaded that this is the best that we could have achieved. It is, at any rate, better than many other proposals that I have had sight of, and so, on Wednesday, I too shall be voting in favour and will be doing so out of conviction.
What, though, do we have here in black and white? Many describe it as a monster. Of course, it is not one. The description of ‘monstrous’ is far better applied to the forty pieces of legislation that we had before. This is a compact package, and not one that is easily read by all, but those who make the effort can manage it. It is also a good thing that we have agreed to review its scope in five years’ time, but what will happen to medical apparatus or other individual products then? Does this have to cover them, or would we be better advised to exclude them? That would make sense; it is also right that we have made improvements where the protection of data is concerned. Whatever the demands of transparency and people’s entitlement to information, data must be protected; we also have to ensure that there is active support for research projects and that research can still be carried out at universities and other facilities. All these things are good.
So what is not good? What is not good is what is going to happen to small and medium-sized businesses. Commissioner Verheugen said so, and I am grateful to him for so doing; if we are not watchful, it is the small and medium-sized enterprises who could end up picking up the tab for our ambitious legislation, and it is time we gave some thought to them. What I urge Commissioners Dimas and Verheugen to do is to amend the definition for small and medium-sized businesses; that is long overdue and will help some of them, but I also urge them to set up a helpdesk that will help such firms, translate for them, and actually ensure that they get help, for the ones this legislation will affect do not know to which transition period they are subject, when – and for what – they have to register, or when this or that will start to apply to them.
Let me conclude by saying that, if we are serious about this – and to Mrs Oomen-Ruijten as much as to anyone else, I emphasise the ‘if’ – then we will make sure that a good and effective agency is in place without delay. That will involve money. That is something that the Council Presidency will have to deal with; let it tell the Council’s members that that is what we need the money for. We in this House must do likewise. My apologies to Mr Ouzký; normally I stay until the end of any debate in which I have spoken, but I now have a meeting of this House’s Bureau to go to."@en1
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