Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-04-28-Speech-4-022"
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"en.20050428.5.4-022"2
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"Mr President, today sees us facing a major political challenge. It is our duty to prevent natural resources from being polluted and exhausted, and, as groundwater accounts for 60% of drinking water in the Netherlands, this is sufficient reason to do all we can to prevent pollution. We must prescribe strict standards for the quality of our groundwater, but how strict should the threshold values be? Should we impose them at European level or should we leave this up to the Member States? There is quite a bit of concern in the Netherlands about European regulations, which often have repercussions for farmers, builders and companies. The quality of air, manure and the protection of the environment are all areas covered by directives with major consequences and difficult to explain to somebody who can see their building project grind to a complete halt because of abstract European rules. ‘This is yet another example of Brussels interfering’. The Dutch Labour Party is clear in its own mind: we do not want common threshold values for our groundwater. Major differences, brought about by natural circumstances, in the chemical composition of groundwater in the Member States make harmonised threshold values undesirable. Threshold values that are too strict can lead to human activities being banned in certain areas. The Dutch Labour Party does not say that the Netherlands should be behind lock and key, nor is there any political backing for rules that are all too obtrusive without there being any need for them. That is why we are opposed to Amendments 111 and 112. Rest assured, though, the Dutch Labour Part is as green as ever. What we are in favour of, though, is an emphatic common conduct standard intended to prevent or limit the contribution of polluted substances in groundwater. That means that each incidence of groundwater being polluted with a number of well-defined substances is inadmissible. We also want the ‘polluter pays’ principle to be taken seriously. My amendment to translate the costs of pollution by herbicides into a levy has received broad support, which I welcome, because many town councils consider manual weeding too expensive. To date, the cost of pollution has not been included in chemical control. If that were the case, the use of harmful substances would drop. Finally, I should like to mention a few amendments related to nitrates and the manure issue. It is beyond me that precisely at a time when various Member States put a lot of work into the nitrates directive, a message is being sent that this directive might be superfluous. That is why we do not back those amendments, although we will be happy to support Amendment 110 tabled by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten."@en1
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