Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-06-06-Speech-1-039-000"
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"en.20110606.16.1-039-000"2
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"Mr President, my thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Leinen, for his report. After many years of pushing and cajoling, we finally seem to be taking this step towards sustainable national accounts and that is highly necessary as – let us be entirely honest – the economic system that we have at the moment is simply not working. At the moment, you can still damage nature and the environment practically free of charge. The current system therefore does not work. These costs that no one pays are diverted onto society instead. Why is sustainable energy more expensive than conventional energy? The answer is that nobody pays the social costs of burning coal, gas and oil.
This report gives the impression of being entirely technical, but ultimately it is about really important matters. You have to measure something to know, as we say in Dutch, and that is what we are talking about here. These European environmental economic accounts are necessary for the switchover to a truly sustainable economy. However, I call on both the Commission and the Member States to actually do something with the data that these accounts will provide. You have to measure something to know about it, that is very important, but using the knowledge that we gain from doing so is even more important and that, surely, is the essential next step. I sincerely hope that this, for example, will lead to the removal of the hundreds of billions in subsidies that have a deleterious effect on the environment and nature that we still have in this world.
Let me just offer my sincere thanks to the Commission and our rapporteur once again. This, however, is just the beginning. Let us also follow up on this by truly taking the steps that the knowledge provided by this measure makes possible."@en1
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