Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-02-02-Speech-4-010-000"
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"Mr President, allow me to begin by expressing my thanks to the Secretariat of the Committee on Petitions, particularly Ms Leffler and others who collaborated with me to make this report possible, including Ms Martín, Mr Kox and Ms Remacle.
Mr President, it is almost over a year since the Committee on Petitions decided to draw up a report on waste management in the EU. The decision was taken after it was established that large numbers of repeat petitions were being put forward, condemning the poor waste management carried out by the authorities, the location of certain rubbish dumps, the destruction of some natural areas, and so on.
The Committee on Petitions was sensitive to these claims, and sent several fact-finding missions to the areas concerned in order to verify
the truth of the complaints made by the petitioners. All of this has led us here today, to the plenary session of the European Parliament, in order to make it clear that the proper application of current legislation by Member States is an unresolved issue that requires particular attention and on which we should remain vigilant.
As I said at the beginning of my speech, most European citizens expect public authorities to provide efficient and effective public services in terms of health, education, transport and security. However, the issue that provokes a growing number of petitions is the apparent inability of public authorities in many countries to deal satisfactorily with the problem of waste management.
The European Union has adopted a broad raft of legislation, applicable in all Member States, in order to ensure that the legal framework exists to deal with the inevitable result of our modern lifestyle in terms of all the things we discard as waste from our household, from our place of work, from our hospitals, from our industries and so on. It is obvious to all that failure to manage such issues, and failure to prioritise efforts in this respect, produces not only negative effects on human health and well-being, but also on the viability of the planet and its environment.
Judging by the petitions received, the concern of many local communities is growing, and this indicates that waste management is becoming a major political and social problem and people expect the European Union to deal with it somehow. An analysis of the waste management policies implemented in the Member States provides very contrasting information and serious breaches of EU legislation.
The Commission reported in January 2011 that 177 infringement cases concerning landfills had been launched since the deadline for implementing the Landfill Directive in 2001. They had furthermore calculated that there were at the very least 619 illegal landfills still being used in the EU. In its strategic report on the prevention and recycling of waste, the Commission clearly demonstrates that it is using its best efforts to address the issue of waste management, and it also outlines its medium-term proposals.
It should be recalled in this context, Mr President, that the large number of infringement cases mentioned aim at ensuring legal compliance, yet from the petitioners’ perspective, more effort needs to be made to ensure proper follow-up actions in the actual implementation of the law.
Closely linked to the waste management process, although upstream of the process, are the EU directives dealing with environmental impact assessments and the access of citizens to information concerning the environment."@en1
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