Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-05-13-Speech-2-033"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20030513.2.2-033"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
"Mr President, like everybody else in the Chamber, I welcome this directive. For too long now we have operated on the polluter pays principle, but what has the polluter paid in the past? The polluter has paid a small fine which never bears any resemblance to the actual clear-up costs of a site. It is high time that we got round to not 'the polluter pays', but 'the polluter restores the site'. That is what this directive sets out to do.
However, the directive, as amended by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, is a weak directive at the moment. We have left it unclear, we have left it vague. I will point out some areas in which we have done that. The definition of biodiversity is a very weak and very vague description. It gives no comfort to the operators, no comfort to the environmental organisations and no comfort to the general public. That is why I support the compromise amendment put forward by my own group, the GUE/NGL and the Verts/ALE.
Another point which the directive, as amended by the Legal Affairs Committee, has failed to address is that of mandatory financial insurance. As it is formulated at the moment, it will allow bad operators to continue to be bad operators. If they fall foul of the law they will go into insolvency. Who will pick up the cost of that? It will be the general public. It will pick up the bill for restoring the site and operators will walk away once more. We cannot allow that to happen. Again, I urge people to look at the compromise coming from the three groups that I mentioned earlier.
On the question of permit defences, again, a full permit defence could be seen as a licence to pollute. We must not allow that. We must look at giving Member States and the courts the power to intervene if they believe that there has been pollution by somebody with a permit defence.
My group, and the European Parliamentary Labour Party, has some difficulty with the question of GMOs, not because we are against GMOs but because we think this legislation might weaken existing GMO legislation. Therefore we will be asking for a split vote on one of the amendments."@en1
|
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples