Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-12-11-Speech-1-094"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20061211.14.1-094"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, on 20 September 2003, before we started our work here, Mr Chirac, Mr Blair and Mr Schroeder wrote to the European Commission asking it not to undermine the competitiveness of the chemical industry. Intervention, and of course pressure, at that level was unprecedented in our codecision history, and I have to say that at that moment the die was cast: REACH would fall short, far short of the aspirations set out in the White Paper, for example, back in 2001.
It is of course out of the question for us to handicap this sector, which is one of the most competitive and dynamic in European industry. We have always, each one of us, listened to its concerns. REACH will be workable. Witness the less stringent registration procedure for substances produced in quantities of one to ten tonnes, the strengthening of the future Helsinki agency, the affirmation – it has been said many times – of the one substance, one registration (OSOR) principle to facilitate the exchange of information between undertakings.
It is also important to limit data input costs. Indeed this is essential for small and medium-sized enterprises. There is also this possibility of an opt-out, duly justified by the applicant. These are considerable steps forward and I would have been delighted with them today if we had not capitulated on the principle of substitution. What remains of it is not even a dilution; I would say rather it is an illusion, a selective, case by case, gradual substitution, including for substances that are carcinogenic, mutagenic or toxic to reproduction, if there are proper controls – and I am quoting the text here.
In particular, REACH is also a blank cheque for endocrine disruptors - plasticisers, insecticides, flame retardants, all of which are among the most lethal chemical agents for human health – a blank cheque signed by our Parliament, whereas the Finnish Presidency was agreeable to making substitution mandatory here. I find this utterly astonishing.
Europe has turned its back on its own people. Try explaining to them today that we are not withdrawing from the market a substance that is a health hazard, especially if a safer alternative exists. I am ashamed, too, of the European authorities’ refusal to listen to the two million doctors, to the authorities and leading experts of the scientific world who are constantly drawing our attention to this silent pandemic created, among other things, by chemical pollution. I have read the same article in the Lancet as Mrs McAvan and Mr Schlyter. So our meeting with People’s Europe this Wednesday 13 December will feel like a let-down, to put it mildly, and all those who, like me, are taking the risk of combining health and sustainable employment instead of continuing to treat them as incompatible in so sterile and obsolete a manner, now have only one or two minutes to express their disappointment."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples