Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-07-06-Speech-2-578"
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"en.20100706.33.2-578"2
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"Mr President, this debate was timed badly. I would like to have seen the Dutch team win, even if for the last time in this World Cup. This is perhaps a bad omen, because we are no longer allowed to watch, so they will probably not win after all.
Commissioner, today – or more precisely tomorrow – we are completing a legislative package that we have been discussing for more than two years. It is not just controversy that is responsible for this, but also the European elections that have taken place in the meantime, and also the entry into force of a new EU Treaty which has meant that we have had to adjust a few things.
However, I think that, if we can draw a conclusion from today’s debate, it is that we are voting on a compromise which completely deserves to be approved, even if, in some areas, we might do so with gritted teeth.
I would like to emphasise two aspects. The first is the environmental requirements in industrial plants. What we are talking about here is the better implementation of best available techniques in Europe. I think that we have found a paragraph of exceptions in the compromise which is currently before us which gives the European Commission – Mr Potočnik, here I am addressing you directly – the tools to ensure over the next few years, better and more firmly than has been the case up to now, that the approximately 52 000 industrial plants in Europe which are affected by this finally make better use of best available techniques than they currently do.
I have heard many arguments in this debate. I would like to take up one of these and deflect it, because I cannot comprehend it at all. It has often been said to me that the use of best available techniques is too expensive and that we will thereby endanger the competitiveness of European industry, and even more so in the crisis. I do not like to remember my past, but I come from the former GDR, East Germany. The economic and ecological collapse of the GDR was attributable to the fact that for decades, we neglected to invest in up-to-date technology.
I think that every industry and every industrial enterprise, for its existence, needs to invest in up-to-date technology, because otherwise it will become less competitive, and this naturally means also reducing emissions of pollutants. Today, we have the opportunity to bring in a law which will improve this situation from which we are starting.
The second part of the directive – and here we have some of the gritted teeth that I mentioned – deals with large combustion plants. We are talking once more – as we did before with the last directive – about renewing exceptions up to 2020, and in some cases 2023, for large combustion plants which do not have to achieve the environmental obligations and, in particular, the limits on air pollutants.
Here I call on the Council, but also perhaps all of us here, to consider very carefully how sensible it really is that we regularly bring in ambitious environmental targets, and we discuss them and welcome them here, but always, whenever it comes to implementing them and transforming them into concrete legislation, then a tragedy begins in Europe. Then it suddenly becomes clear to the Member States how much it costs, which bills we have to pay, and then, as a rule, the ones who have done this in advance are punished.
There are a number of Member States which now already meet the obligations, and which will, in the end, be left out in the cold. I will say it here once again: whether we are talking about industrial plants or large combustion plants – which essentially means coal power stations – we are not dealing with science fiction. We are not talking about things which are not available; on the contrary, this is up-to-date technology. Best available techniques – what is available on the market given competitive and cost factors – can be incorporated into these plants, and today, against this background, we are completing a legislative package which I think is better than what is currently in force, and therefore I would encourage us all to approve it. I would also like to thank my fellow Members, who, while sometimes pulling no punches, have worked with me on this for the last two years, for their support, their legwork and, above all, for the fact that almost all of the main groups have subscribed to this compromise."@en1
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