Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-07-07-Speech-5-042"
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"en.20000707.3.5-042"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen
This is a mission which we have to accomplish. Sustainability is a really important concept, particularly in times like these. We should try to set an example because the environment is a really important criterion for future generations.
However, I should particularly like to come back to Amendment No 3, which concerns the profit motive. The profit motive is also something completely natural and sensible. Companies in the red or countries which get into debt cannot pay the salaries which are desirable for employees and civil servants. We are in favour of high salaries, so we also need to make profits.
At the end of the day, I also support small and medium-sized enterprises. There are 18 million of them in the European Union, on which jobs directly depend. Whether profits or long-term losses are made threatens the company’s existence and in particular, also the jobs it creates.
I should now like to come to Amendment No 8 and point out that criminal law is obviously not like occupational practice legislation. I would have liked us to have obtained at least an opinion on this from the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market because such issues are, after all, extremely important in principle and in my view, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy cannot deal with them conclusively on its own.
I should also like to make it clear that the company’s obligation to gain trust must be defined or interpreted in such a way that it must of course relate to the rules concerning the extent of the authorisation for the plant. The individual company must, of course, be aware of the rules, so that it can then also comply with them.
On Amendment No 19, I should like to say that it can obviously only be taken to mean deliberately providing misleading information, and Amendment No 20 obviously only deals with financial gain. On Amendment No 25, I should like to say that within the insurance industry it is in fact still not possible to calculate or insure pure environmental damage. We would need it to be defined precisely.
I believe, nevertheless, that this proposal is by and large very sensible, especially when we think of enlargement with Central and Eastern European countries. If we create a legal framework for the future now, it could be very useful to our thinking on the environment.
However, I am of the opinion that the criminal sanctions should first and foremost only be applied in the case of criminal intent or persistent gross negligence. The threat of imprisonment is an approach that really threatens a person’s livelihood! I should not like to put a worker behind bars and threaten his livelihood because on one occasion, he acts with gross negligence by not turning off a tap. I would therefore suggest that we are extremely cautious with these criteria because this is obviously a very sensitive area.
We should also think very carefully how to optimise the best practice method in this instance, that is to say, best practice and benchmarking and offering incentives are an important basis particularly for environmental protection. The European Union, in particular, has shown that a great deal can be achieved in this respect with numerous incentives, research and development, and consultation. However, training and certification are obviously necessary too. We have already spoken about EMAS this week. If we follow this positive route via incentives, then we will really be protecting our planet."@en1
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