Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-11-18-Speech-1-080"
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"en.20021118.5.1-080"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner Byrne has made an enormous effort to bring forward a proposal for a directive in a field in which the Court of Justice had rescinded the previous directive on the complete prohibition of tobacco advertising.
The Commission can rest assured that I have an entirely constructive approach towards the object of achieving a final result in relation to this. But I will say again that this is a democratic House and the opinions of the Members vary widely. I even have the impression that there are significant differences between the national delegations within the various parties. The task of the rapporteur in this case must therefore be one of coordination, of good will, if you like, and above all of coordinating the results obtained next Wednesday in this House with the good intention of the Commission and the Commissioner of adopting a Community regulation in the field of health.
In any event, it should be remembered that the inclusion of a clause on health in the forthcoming European Constitution is still to be dealt with, and I have the impression that the work of the Convention is not moving in that direction at the moment, which is rather worrying.
In terms of health, I believe that the Community is in a situation worthy of Kafka, because, although we have competence in the field of animal health – from stabling to feedingstuffs and transport – in contrast, in practice our competences in the field of health are minimal. In other words, the European Union has hardly any competences in the field of human health. It is able to adopt certain measures, certain recommendations, certain promotional initiatives, such as cooperation between States and with international organisations, but when it comes to legislative harmonisation, in practice we are faced with deadlock.
The Commission has been intelligent enough to try to take maximum advantage of the conclusions of the Court of Justice, what I would call the
of the Court of Justice, in the judgment which rescinded the previous Directive on tobacco advertising. And from the point of view of the Committee on Legal Affairs, the rapporteur in particular has had the greatest sympathy for the efforts of the Commission and Commissioner Byrne to bring forward this proposal for a directive which, as he has said, is much more modest than the previous one.
Nevertheless, the rapporteur must acknowledge that there have been enormous difficulties within the Committee on Legal Affairs and, in order to make the negotiation of this directive possible, has had to accept a series of compromise amendments that make up the current text, which has been adopted by the Committee on Legal Affairs.
We do not yet know what the result of the votes next Wednesday on this issue will be. My impression is that, at the moment, this House is very much divided, since, as some Members claim, certain amendments may even weaken the legal basis proposed by the Commission and, at this moment, specifically, the opinion, for example, of the rapporteur for the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy – who I believe we will hear next – is, of course, opposed to the introduction of amendments.
I have the impression that certain of the amendments, at least, are justified, since they are intended to correct some of the aspects of the directive which would benefit from improvements. For example, a generalised extension of the prohibition of the use of certain trade marks could prejudice companies which, in reality, do not produce tobacco; all that happens is that some of the trade marks coincide with those of other companies who do produce it. I believe that each of these amendments will have to be studied carefully.
I share Mr Byrne’s concern at the delay which has taken place within the Committee on Legal Affairs. We felt obliged to hold a hearing as a result of the enormous disparity in opinions which had been expressed in committee and, at that hearing, I must acknowledge and point out that the majority of the members of the Committee on Legal Affairs were critical of the Commission’s proposals.
The rapporteur has therefore felt obliged to do some rather deft work, trying to bring together positions in order to produce a first text that would reach the plenum in this House. It will therefore be this House which really decides next Wednesday on the fate of each of these amendments.
Certain subsequent amendments have been presented, which the rapporteur considers to be acceptable in principle – the amendment by Mrs Hautala, which is intended to strengthen the Commission’s legal basis by means of a recital. I hope that, next Wednesday, regardless of what happens with each of the amendments in the different votes, the text of the directive as a whole can be approved. In other words, I hope that the report is adopted so that the negotiation may continue. Since we are undergoing a co-decision procedure, we all have the opportunity to carry on correcting the deficiencies which may be contrary to the objective of being sure that this new proposal for a directive may pass the test of a further hearing before the Court of Justice, which will undoubtedly take place, because in the field of tobacco there are always hearings before the Court of Justice."@en1
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"obiter dicta"1
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