Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-03-14-Speech-2-311"
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"Mr President, honourable Members of Parliament, we have made great strides in tackling acidification and also pollution in recent years. I hope that this proposal will be another important step in this direction and that is why I especially want to thank the rapporteur Mrs Myller for her valuable work.
The Commission considers that, if Member States take seriously the Kyoto commitments, the emission ceilings that it has proposed will not be difficult to implement. We may well be able to go further by 2010, but this is something that can only be decided when we know how Member States will meet their Kyoto targets. We cannot therefore accept Amendment No 31. The Commission cannot accept Amendments No 4 and 14: under the principle of subsidiarity it is for Member States, not the Commission, to determine penalties for breaches of national legislation. Furthermore, Amendment No 14 seeks to restrict the Commission's discretion under the Treaty to decide when to bring infringement proceedings.
Amendments Nos 5, 18 and 30 are also unacceptable. The Commission is committed to pursuing long-term objectives for protection of the environment and human health, but we simply do not have enough information today to predict when long-term objectives might be reached. The Commission must reject Amendment No 6. Emissions from international maritime traffic and cruising aircraft cannot be wholly controlled by individual Member States, nor even by Community action, and cannot therefore be included in national emission ceilings. Action where appropriate must be taken in the International Maritime Organisation or the International Civil Aviation Organisation.
Last week, the IMO agreed to a proposal from the Community to declare the North Sea a sulphur dioxide control area. The Commission will examine whether further such proposals should be made to the IMO, and whether international action is also needed on aircraft emissions.
The Commission cannot accept Amendment No 7. It is based on a misleading comparison with the solvents directive, where processes may involve high temperatures. Non-volatile organic compounds are automatically excluded from the definition of “volatile organic compound” in these proposals since they are not found in the air in ambient conditions and do not contribute to ozone formation. The proposed definition is identical in the Gothenburg Protocol. We must maintain technical consistency.
The Commission cannot accept Amendment No 10. It would remove an essential obligation for Member States regularly to update emission inventories.
Finally, Mr President, we do not accept Amendment No 22. The Commission's proposed wording on the key issue of public information is in line with agreements on the first two air quality daughter directives.
Finally, I should like to answer Mrs Oomen-Ruijten because she asked about the proposals on large combustion plants. The answer is that the Council failed to reach a common position in December and the Commission is supporting the Portuguese presidency in its effort to make progress in parallel with the progress on this proposal.
The Gothenburg Protocol is a step forward. However, it is nowhere near enough. The protocol goes only halfway towards the goal for acidification already agreed by Parliament and the Council. A substantial number of people will die early if we do not adopt the measures proposed by the Commission. The protocol is the result of a process in which there is too little pressure on the reluctant to do what they should. We cannot let this deflect the Community from agreed goals. The costs of the Commission's proposal must be kept in perspective, even on the Commission's highly pessimistic estimate which would not take full account of Kyoto or non-technical solutions. They amount to only 0.08% of Community GDP in the year 2010.
Member States will have to do some of the things that will let them meet proposed emissions ceilings more cheaply if they are to live up to their Kyoto commitments. Saying that the ceilings are too difficult is dangerously close to ignoring Kyoto.
Let me now turn to the amendments. The Commission can accept fully Amendments Nos 3, 8, 9, 13, 19 and 21. The Commission can accept in part the principle underlying Amendments Nos 1 and 2. We will draft a recital which does not appear to restrict the Commission's right of initiative, for inclusion in our amended proposal. We will also include a reference in Article 9 of the directive in order to make the new recital operational. It follows that the Commission does not accept Amendment No 27.
The aim of the Commission's proposal is to leave as much flexibility as possible to Member States, but we cannot rule out further Community action if this would help Member States to meet emission ceilings more cost-effectively.
The Commission can also accept in part Amendment No 11 which would make further changes to Article 9. We agree that review of the legislation should take account of aircraft emissions, further emission reductions in regions bordering on the Community, measures taken in applicant countries and transport factors. The Commission cannot however agree to bring forward the dates for reports to Parliament and Council. In 2003 the Commission will have almost no data from Member States on which to report and base any decisions. The Commission will not know in 2011 whether or not ceilings were met in 2010 because of the time that must be allowed for Member States to compile inventories.
We accept in part the principles underlying Amendment No 12. We will therefore redraft Article 9(3) to incorporate much of the material in the proposed amendment. The Commission accepts the principles of Amendment No 23. The reference to countries outside the UN/ECE process must be restricted to those who have supplied data and whose emissions are relevant to pollution in the Community.
The Commission accepts Amendments Nos 24, 25 and 26 in principle, and will also take them into account when it redrafts Article 9 as part of its amended proposal. The Commission has a great deal of sympathy with the concerns underlying Amendments Nos 16 and 17. Allowance should be made for the fact that smaller Member States have less room to spread the load. However we are dealing here with transboundary pollution, so the Commission considers that adjustments to ceilings for individual Member States can only be made as part of a general review of ceilings. We will therefore propose a new recital and changes to Article 9, which will ensure that effects on smaller Member States are properly taken into account on review.
The Commission can accept that part of Amendment No 20 that would insert “an appropriate” into Recital 9. We do not accept the remainder of Amendment No 20. The Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 15, 28, 29 and 32. They seek to replace emission ceilings that are designed to meet the agreed Community target for acidification, and to protect our citizens' health, with the emission ceilings in the Gothenburg Protocol. Gothenburg ceilings fall far short of what is needed as has already been said."@en1
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