Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-02-12-Speech-1-129"
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"Mr President, first of all I would like to thank all the speakers in tonight’s debate for their very constructive positions. I would like to outline the Commission’s view on a number of key issues raised by Parliament. I will start with those aspects of the thematic strategy not covered in the directive.
For example, it is not good for the environment to have a total ban on the mixing of hazardous waste with other waste: it could lead to substandard treatment of some kinds of hazardous waste. More generally, it is essential that the work on developing common standards for the recycling market, such as the end-of-waste criteria, should be allowed to reach its full potential. These standards are necessarily technical and must adapt to improvements in environmental performance in order not to become a drag on eco-innovation. The time taken by the preparation and the procedures for codecision means that this is an inappropriate route for such technical work and some comitology will be necessary.
Finally, I wanted to comment on the amendments relating to waste prevention. Waste prevention, as I said before, is one of the key elements of this revision. I welcome the support for the waste prevention programmes in the report. I also understand the approach behind the inclusion of a waste prevention target. However, the target, as presented in the relevant amendments, is too bland. It will have an uneven impact on different Member States – too difficult for some, not ambitious enough for others – and it will be difficult to interpret and enforce. I cannot, therefore, accept the amendments in question.
As I have already explained, this is a framework directive, whose role cannot be to regulate specific recycling targets. Such targets will be elaborated and proposed by the Commission in the near future.
Many speakers have asked for specific legislation, for example in areas such as bio-waste. The Commission is examining ways to make legislative proposals in this field.
Many other speakers raised issues which are not to be dealt with in this directive, such as illegal cross-border shipments of waste, for which we have special legislation. Municipal waste cannot be transported across borders for incineration, even if the municipal incinerator across the border is classified as recovery. A Member State may oppose such a transfer.
We have a prohibition on the dumping of waste in the developing world both in European Union law and international law: the Basel ban. A few days ago, a directive was proposed to punish environmental crimes.
Soil pollution from illegal landfilling is covered by the Landfill Directive and the soil thematic strategy. The conclusion must be that the role of the waste framework directive is not to deal with special dysfunctions.
I now turn to the 92 amendments tabled just before the plenary. We welcome some of the suggestions, such as maintaining the energy efficiency formula as a basis for distinguishing between recovery and disposal for municipal incinerators, but we cannot accept certain other amendments.
However, given the volume and timing of these amendments, I will need to reserve the position of the Commission.
To sum up, I am pleased to say that the Commission can accept 42 of the amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety – 15 in full and 27 in principle or in part. I shall give a complete list of the Commission’s position on the amendments to Parliament’s Secretariat.
I welcome the support given in the report to developing common European minimum standards. The next step will be a new proposal to regulate certain additional waste treatment activities under the IPPC directive. I also agree with the emphasis placed on preventing waste and notably on the role chemicals policy and eco-design could play in this respect. Finally, the resolution you have approved proposes a number of additional measures for increasing recycling and recovery of waste. The Commission will take this into account when developing further measures implementing the strategy.
I should like to thank the rapporteurs once again for their efforts and excellent work. Thank you very much for your attention.
Let me now turn to the waste framework directive. Many of the amendments adopted by the European Parliament provide useful clarifications to the proposal and can be accepted. Others would have consequences that would be undesirable. I would like first of all to comment on some of the points made in tonight’s debate and on some of the key amendments that the Commission can accept in full, in principle, or in part.
The Commission can accept the stricter and clearer reference to a five-step waste hierarchy. However, it is important that we recognise that the hierarchy needs to be applied in order to take the best environmental option. Excessive procedural requirements such as those set out in the second part of the amendment will not help to achieve this.
The Commission can also accept a number of useful clarifications with regard to some important definitions including waste prevention and recycling. In addition, elements such as the promotion of reuse and producer responsibility can be supported in principle. The Commission also welcomes the reference to the interpretative communication on by-products, which I hope will satisfy the need for clarity in this domain when it is adopted very shortly. However, there are also a number of amendments that the Commission cannot support.
Firstly, the Commission is committed to having clear and unambiguous definitions of the key terms in this directive. As I stated earlier, the amendments proposed in relation to reuse and to recovery and disposal do not meet this test. The recovery and disposal distinction is a key framework condition for the functioning of the European recycling market. It needs to be applied by the authorities in order to process waste shipment decisions, and the recovery definition in the directive must be sufficiently clear and robust to allow this to happen. Otherwise, there will be frequent and unnecessary referrals to the Court of Justice and this would adversely affect recycling activities and the environmental benefit they can deliver.
Secondly, it is important to deal with the grey area in the energy recovery definition with regard to classifying municipal incinerators, where the amendments proposed do not tackle the issue and weaken the level of environmental protection. This problem dates back ten years and we need to find a compromise now in order to deal with it clearly in this revision.
Making the efficiency criterion from the Commission proposal obligatory for municipal incinerators and extending this to co-incineration facilities as well is not the answer to the question. It will be neither technically possible nor environmentally useful.
Thirdly, certain amendments are either unnecessary references, duplicate other elements of European Union legislation, or add an unnecessary administrative burden for stakeholders or the European Union institutions. Notably, a number of the amendments relating to hazardous waste would penalise businesses handling such waste for no apparent environmental benefit and in some cases are technically impossible to implement."@en1
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