Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-05-21-Speech-1-127"
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"en.20070521.18.1-127"2
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"Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, you pointed out just now, Commissioner, that the chemical pollution of surface waters was a threat to the aquatic environment, the ecosystem and, hence, human safety. You said, in fact, that the aim of this daughter directive of the water framework directive was to combat the spread of toxic substances in surface waters. To this end, an inventory of emissions, discharges and losses is to be implemented with the aim of verifying whether the objectives of reducing or phasing out emissions and losses of pollutants have been met, in accordance with Article 13(7) of the framework directive, the deadline for the phase-out objective being 2025. In fact, this directive will result in the abrogation of the existing daughter directives that are cited in Annex IX to the framework directive.
This directive therefore sets limits in terms of the concentration in surface waters of certain types of pesticides, heavy metals and other chemical substances that endanger aquatic flora and fauna and human safety. The impact studies that have been carried out by the Commission have resulted in the definition of environmental quality standard levels, expressed as an annual average offering a level of protection against long-term exposure and as a maximum allowable concentration, for protection against short-term exposure. However, some of the EQS values are still subject to debate, not least those relating to benzene and cadmium, hexachlorobenzene and hexachlorobutadiene, mercury, nickel, lead and poly-aromatic hydrocarbons too, because some impact studies have not been finished, a state of affairs that has, in spite of everything, hampered us in our debates.
The amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety highlight the desire to establish common methodologies aimed at guaranteeing an appropriate level of protection and at preventing distortions of competition among the Member States. We also wondered about the possibility of authorising transitional areas of exceedance. Indeed, if we deleted this paragraph, would we be any further forward? What matters, in fact, is the area of analysis. If we did not define any transitional areas, there might be a perverse effect, whereby we avoided controls in those areas and, therefore, were unaware of what was going on there.
We have therefore proposed to allow the Member States the option of establishing transitional areas, but with the obligation of reducing these areas in order to reach the environmental quality standards in the long term. We also mentioned the special case of port areas where, due to the mixing of bodies of water caused by the dredging of rivers and estuaries, the quality standards and analysis methods appear unsuitable. We discussed at length the advisability of adding highly toxic substances to the list of substances initially proposed by the Commission. A compromise was finally reached on this matter. We call for the Commission to carry out an analysis of these new listed substances and for it to give its opinion on their final classification, as priority substances or as priority hazardous substances, and to do so at the latest 12 months after the entry into force of this directive.
Our compromise relates to new emission control measures. We would emphasise emissions control. While the Commission is in fact relying on the existence of other legislative provisions on chemical pollutants, such as REACH, IPPC or indeed the Pesticides Directives, we call for the Commission to carry out a thorough assessment of the consistency and effectiveness of all the legislative acts that exist and that are liable to have an impact on water quality and, if necessary, to adapt or propose new acts.
To conclude, I should like to thank the Commission representatives and the various people who helped me to draft this report and, of course, my fellow draftsmen of the opinion, for their constructive cooperation on a very technical matter. I must say that it was a pleasure to work with them.
I now call on you, ladies and gentlemen, to endorse this report so that we obtain a text that makes it possible to monitor the effectiveness of EU environmental legislation, that is to say, a text that makes it possible to know whether, by 2025, we will have succeeded in eliminating the emissions from these substances that are highly toxic for human beings and for the environment."@en1
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