Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-05-09-Speech-1-081"
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"en.20050509.15.1-081"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it was with the 1976 Bathing Water Directive that uniform minimum standards for bathing water in the European Community were first laid down. While the 1976 Directive specified 19 physical, chemical and microbiological parameters for the assessment of water quality, the present Common Position from the Council reduces the test criteria to a mere two microbiological pathogens, to which it adds the visual checking and measurement of the pH value of fresh water.
In general terms, the Commission proposal for a new bathing water directive forms part of the European Union’s comprehensive policy on water, being based on more recent scientific discoveries, and on WHO studies in particular. Whereas, in 1976, values described as ‘adequate’, still put between 7% and 9% of bathers at risk, the WHO now stipulates values permitting a maximum risk of 5% incidences of illness among bathers. In its Common Position, the Council has introduced a new parameter of ‘sufficient’, which does not, however constitute an improvement over the 1976 standard.
This is where opinions differ. You said, Commissioner, that the main argument is that the costs would be too high, yet many of the alleged additional costs arise from compliance with the standards of the Water Framework Directive, the Nitrates Directive and the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive. The minimal costs that actually are incurred by reason of compliance with higher quality standards are now, though, covered by the reduction in social costs, quite simply because, at the end of the day, fewer people become ill.
I, personally, would argue in favour of the introduction, with immediate effect, of the higher quality standards proposed by the WHO and the Commission. Although preventive healthcare is not something that can be put off to another day, Mr Seeber has joined with Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, Mrs Gutiérrez-Cortines and Mrs Ayuso González in tabling a compromise amendment on behalf of the group. It provides for a transitional period of eight years, which will be sufficient to achieve the quality standards. There are those countries that believe that the new quality standards impose particularly heavy burdens on them, and the amendment is intended to allow them more time to prepare themselves for their greater rigour and to deal with any problems they may have.
I ask the House to support this compromise amendment."@en1
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