Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-11-20-Speech-2-470-000"
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"en.20121120.31.2-470-000"2
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"Madam President, both of the European Commissioners have highlighted that today there is a lot of uncertainty about shale gas in Europe, a lot of unanswered questions. We do not know how many commercially exploitable reserves there are inside the European Union. We do not know about the environmental constraints and whether or not our current law covers shale gas. That is why if we look at the situation today only two countries in the EU are having exploratory drilling for shale for fracking – the UK and Poland – and in the UK there is a temporary moratorium because there was seismic activity in the first area where there was fracking.
We have an opportunity as European legislators to make sure that if any country chooses to go ahead and exploit shale gas, we have in place proper environmental controls. When we had the hearing in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, one lesson we learnt from our American counterparts and legislators was not to have to play catch-up after shale gas extraction has started. A lot of the problems in the US were because at the beginning there were no environmental laws to protect the water table. Yes, there are problems with water contamination in the United States; they are getting them under control now, but there were problems. We have this opportunity, this space, and I hope we will take that space and support the report of the Environment Committee, which is a very balanced report on shale gas, and that is why it got a big majority in committee. It puts to one side the question of a moratorium and I know that an amendment has been tabled about this, because we all know that the decision on whether or not to frack is not a decision we will have to take: it is one that national parliamentarians will have to take.
I hope that whatever happens on that amendment tomorrow, colleagues in this House will support the Environment Committee’s report. We see unity today from the European Commission on fracking and I hope that this Parliament can show similar unity."@en1
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