Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-10-24-Speech-1-149"
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"en.20051024.19.1-149"2
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Mr President, this is a package of two pieces of legislation and I am rapporteur for both; hence the time allocated to me. I wish to begin by thanking my colleagues in the PPE-DE Group and all the political groups for a wide-ranging discussion and debates. We did not agree on everything but we have had a lot of discussion on the very interesting issues contained in both these pieces of legislation.
As rapporteur, I have consulted widely on this issue and examined every option from one end of the spectrum to the other. My main priority has been to achieve legal certainty for industry. After considered deliberation, I have come to the firm conclusion that the only logical and legally watertight option in the spirit of the aims and scopes of the regulation – I would advise colleagues and others interested to read the recitals – is to opt for a single legal base that corresponds to the preponderant purpose or the ‘centre of gravity’ of the legislation. In this case, as in the ozone depleting substances regulation to which this proposal is related, that is environmental protection. It is clearly explained in the recitals to the regulation that the main aim is to contribute to global warming reduction targets. The scope of the regulation is absolutely clear on that as well: global warming reduction targets, air quality improvement.
The European Parliament’s legal opinion stated categorically that an unevenly weighted dual legal base, as in the common position, is legally unsound and will be struck down by the ECJ. All the precedent case-law confirms that the Court will quash the reference to the subordinate legal base – Article 95 in this case – and interpret the whole regulation as founded on the main legal base – Article 175. However, this outcome will only come about after years of wrangling and protracted uncertainty for industry. We should keep control of legislative decisions in this political arena – even if it means conciliation it is still political control – rather than letting the courts decide on legislation for us.
Article 175 will also allow those Member States which already have more ambitious legislation in force as part of their Kyoto strategy to keep that legislation where it is appropriate for the functioning of the internal market and not, as would be the case with the current common position, force them to bring their environmental standards down to lower EU levels.
It is important to remember, however, that Articles 175 and 176 do not give Member States a free hand to introduce whatever measures they want. The internal market will still be protected from unjustified trade barriers under the environment legal base, Article 175, which is predicated on protection of the single market. It is clearly stated in Article 176 that no stricter measures can be taken by a Member State unless they are compatible with the Treaty, i.e. unless they are proportionate, non-discriminatory and do not create unjustified barriers to the single market.
The effect of the environment legal base is substantively the same as the single market (Article 95) base, which also allows Member States to take stricter measures. It is only the burden of proof – on the Commission under Article 175, on the Member State under Article 95 – and the enforcement procedures which are different.
In this respect, I call on the Commission to make a declaration, on the record, that it will be assiduous in pursuing its obligations as enforcer of the Treaty in relation to this regulation and that it will take particular care to police and monitor any stricter measures that are proposed by Member States, in the interests of furthering the internal market within the bounds of Article 175. While the Commission may not have been proactive enough to date in using its infringement powers, I hope that its recent case against Denmark will be a sign of things to come and will assuage the worst case scenario fears of industry with regard to the single market.
As a further safeguard, and to assist SMEs, I have proposed an amendment to introduce an online register where any stricter measures that are compatible with the single market under Article 176 would be recorded in an easily accessible single document. I urge colleagues to support this proposal.
In an enlarged Europe of 25 – soon to be 27 – Member States, the Council may well resort to more frequent use of a dual legal base in order to try and satisfy various national interests. This will result in fragmentation of the purpose and focus of legislation. This trend towards cobbling together sloppy compromises at the Council negotiating table when Member States cannot reach an acceptable political agreement is extremely worrying. I believe that the European Parliament is uniquely placed to overcome the constraints of national positions and to provide policy coherence in areas where Community-level action is required. We as a Parliament must resist the dilution and emasculation of legislation.
The bottom line is that, if the common position on the dual legal base is maintained, this regulation will end up with a single Article 175 legal base after the ECJ has examined it and struck down the subordinate legal base, Article 95. I would prefer this Parliament’s decision to prevail and I cannot put my name to a regulation that is not legally sound and will not withstand legal scrutiny.
One key argument that has received little acknowledgement in the heated debates so far is the competitiveness case of employing Article 175 to achieve our Lisbon targets of becoming the most competitive knowledge-based economy in the world, with sustainable growth as an integral part of that objective. The proposal to use a single market legal base and also impose additional bans in the annex is a blunt instrument that industry, the Commission and the Council cannot accept. At present, none of the proposals to include additional bans on the use of F-gases in certain applications have been subjected to impact assessments or comprehensive health and safety or even cost-benefit analysis by the Commission. I do not believe we should use them without prior technical examination.
The background is that the fluorinated gases were introduced in the nineties to replace the ozone-depleting CFCs and HCFCs. They are used in all sorts of applications, some essential, others less so: in insulating foams, aerosols, refrigeration and air conditioning systems, in fire protection equipment and even in the soles of air technology jogging shoes.
I believe in containment and recovery as very sensible and effective means of mitigating emissions of greenhouse gases. However, I also see the need for promoting the development of alternative technologies which are more environmentally benign than the existing ones. By allowing more ambitious legislation in some Member States, subject to the close scrutiny of the Commission, and by restricting the marketing of certain products where better alternatives exist, the objectives just mentioned will be given impetus.
Industry must be given long-term certainty. It is our duty to lay out the directions for the future and it is for us as politicians, together with the Council and the Commission, to decide on legislation and not allow the ECJ to direct it all.
As the debate on climate change developed following the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the harmful impact of these fluorinated gases, owing to their high global warming potential or GWP, became recognised as a major contributor – 5% and rising – to the ‘greenhouse effect’. Of the six greenhouse gases listed in the annex to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, three are fluorinated gases. The aim of this legislation is to enable Member States to meet their Kyoto targets by containing the leakage and restricting the use of fluorinated gases.
Whereas the original Commission proposal to Parliament was in the form of one regulation with a single market legal base – Article 95 – the Council reached a common position which took the form of two separate texts: a directive based on Article 95 and a regulation based on a dual legal base consisting of Articles 175 and 95. The rationale for the split of the Commission proposal into two different texts was to move all the requirements relating to emissions from air conditioning in motor vehicles from the proposed regulation to the framework directive for type-approval of motor vehicles, Directive 70/156/EEC. The proposed regulation would then focus on the remaining stationary applications.
As far as the mobile air conditioning or MAC Directive is concerned, I am of the opinion that a balance has to be struck between, on the one hand, being technology-prescriptive in relation to the global warming potential of the gases to be allowed according to the directive and, on the other hand, promoting the development of alternative environmental technologies. As it now stands, the ban in the directive applies to gases with a global warming potential higher than 150, meaning that HFC-152a – which has a global warming potential of about 120 – can still be used. This will allow further innovation and development of alternative technologies with regard to air conditioning systems.
Reducing the GWP threshold in mobile air conditioning will effectively mean that the development of CO2 technology is the only option for European car manufacturers at the present time. While I recognise that European industry is a world leader in this technology and I commend its achievements, the current state-of-the-art CO2 systems have a number of disadvantages which make them unsuitable for export outside the EU. First of all, they involve very high pressure equipment, which would present health and safety risks to mechanics who do not have the expertise to service them. Outside the EU, where F-gas technology will remain mainstream, the service networks for such systems will simply not exist. Secondly, CO2 technology is not suitable for use in certain extreme temperatures, in very hot climates for instance. Setting the threshold at 150 GWP does not exclude the further refinement of CO2 technology, but it would allow our car manufacturers to maintain market penetration in all areas of the world. By coming down from the present position to 150 GWP, there is at least a ten-fold decrease – 1000% – in emissions and there would be negligible extra benefit – about 2.6% – in setting a GWP threshold at 50. I know some colleagues are attached to this proposal, but it would be hard to defend it at world trade level because of this insignificant extra environmental benefit and because of this it could be perceived as a technical trade barrier.
To reiterate, what is important is that, by adopting this directive, we are blocking the use of HFC-134a, which has a global warming potential 10 times higher than HFC 152a.
With regard to the phase-out dates proposed by various Members, our aim should be for this legislation to enter into force as soon as possible, so that industry can begin to get rid of the gases with very high global warming potential, while maintaining the six-year type-approval timeframe. I am therefore in favour of approving the common position on the directive as it is, without further amendments.
On the regulation on certain fluorinated gases, there has been serious debate over the legal base: whether the legal base of the regulation should be the environment (Article 175 of the Treaty) or the single market (Article 95 of the Treaty) or whether the dual legal base proposed in the common position (Articles 175 and 95) should be maintained. We as a Parliament have a duty to settle this issue; above all, industry needs legal certainty."@en1
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