Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-07-06-Speech-2-612"
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"en.20100706.34.2-612"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner Potočnik, today’s debate and tomorrow’s vote are truly an emotional moment, an historic moment. I see many friends here who fought hard with us. We have now just about managed to bring the Council round to Parliament’s initial positions, and we have before us a piece of legislation which protects both European citizens and European producers.
Until now, European citizens buying timber or timber products had no way of knowing if they were legal or illegal and if, in buying them, they were subsidising bloody civil wars financed through illegal felling or climate change through deforestation. Now, with this legislation and thanks to Parliament’s efforts, we have managed to get the Council to agree with the obvious, by which I mean that illegal timber should also be considered illegal in Europe.
We have also managed to centralise, through the European Commission, the control inherent in the terms, approval and authorisation on the part of the operators who will supervise legal timber evaluation systems and approve timber products. We have also managed, when each operator examines if timber is legal, to include legislation on biodiversity and numerous other matters.
Nonetheless, there are two crucial points which the Council did not accept and which, in my opinion, are critical. The Council refused to accept the obvious, that being the first to import illegal timber and timber products on to the European market should be an infringement included in the directive on environmental crime. This is absolutely absurd. As is the fact that the concept of negligible risk has been retained, thereby opening a back door to certain activities which do not need to comply with the procedures provided for in the legislation. However, this legislation protects European citizens and European producers from unfair competition from cheap illegal timber.
Finally, I should like to thank my associates who worked on this issue, such as Alexandros Kandalepas and his staff."@en1
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