Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-07-05-Speech-2-746-000"
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"en.20110705.41.2-746-000"2
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"Mr President, I would like to suggest dividing my time into two parts: the first four minutes to make my speech, and the last two to answer questions from my fellow Members, if that is all right with you.
Mr Vice-President, President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this first evening debate on the subject of transport. I would like to mention that between 2000 and 2010 we achieved the target we set ourselves to reduce the number of road fatalities, which stood at 50 000 in the year 2000. We did not succeed in reducing it by half, to 25 000, as planned. Instead, the figure now stands at 31 000, and therefore the new target that we have just set ourselves for the 2010-2020 period, to reduce these 31 000 road fatalities by half, requires new and important measures.
The measure that I am proposing today is the result of an agreement that has a long history, which began in 2008, based on a proposal from the Commission that Parliament warmly welcomed, because it provided us with another instrument; indeed, it provides us with an instrument to continue and improve on that goal to reduce the number of road fatalities. It was calculated that we could prevent at least a further 400 road fatalities each year, not counting injuries. However, in 2008, after our first reading, the report stalled. I therefore invite you to calculate the number of lives we have failed to save in those three years during which the report and the implementation of this instrument were delayed. The truth is that I have criticised myself for that every day, specifically for not having been more diligent. It was not Parliament’s responsibility. It was the responsibility of the Council, which, with a blocking minority, did not accept the joint proposal from Parliament and the Commission.
Precisely with the aim of putting an end to this continuous flow of blood from the victims of road safety, we tried – with the Belgian and Hungarian Presidencies, whom I have to thank for having done everything possible and impossible to break the deadlock on this issue – and managed to unblock the issue, although the legal basis was changed. It required unanimous cooperation from the police, and there was the opt-out problem, since three Member States – the United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark – had the option of remaining outside this new system definitively.
There was also a series of problems concerning limitations or conditions for a procedure which, at first reading and in the Commission’s proposal, created a comprehensive system from the moment the offence is committed right up to the moment when the necessary sanction is enforced; all of this was done for the four offences which, at the time, were causing 75% of road fatalities: jumping a red light, breaking the speed limit, driving with a blood alcohol level higher than the legal limit, and not wearing a seat belt.
In any case, with this new proposal and its new legal basis, we managed to enter a new, important climate of negotiation where we succeeded in breaking the deadlock on the issue. It is a first step, a vital step towards achieving this, as has been confirmed by associations of victims and the families of road victims, as well as expert groups. Right now we are waiting to find out if a procedural matter, such as correlation tables, which came up at the last minute, could bring us to a standstill once again.
I only want to draw everyone’s attention to the importance of not blocking this directive."@en1
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