Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-09-06-Speech-3-359"
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"en.20000906.14.3-359"2
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"Mr President, where air traffic too is concerned, the Group of the European People’s Party and European Democrats supports the initiative of the European Commission and of the responsible Vice-President, Mrs Palacio, to reconcile causing as little damage as possible to the environment with citizens’ and companies’ interest in being able to travel. The Committee too has made a decision along the same lines, although we ought in all honesty to say that we had completely to re-write Mrs Lucas’ report, since it was based upon totally unrealistic premisses. However, we finally reached a majority agreement.
The summer has again shown how important air travel is for people heading for their holiday destinations. Particularly where families with children are concerned, air travel offers the quickest means of getting away to the sun, and the one which puts least strain on the nerves. At the same time, it provides the basis for jobs and businesses in many parts of the European Union. Business travel and freight forwarding on international air routes are also vital to trade and commerce.
On the other hand, air travel has an obvious detrimental effect upon the environment due to exhaust emissions and noise pollution. We must make sure that we limit these forms of damage to the environment, at the same time, however, as distinguishing between the damage caused to health around airports and the ways in which people’s ordinary well-being is prejudiced. I fear that, if we were to adopt the WHO’s regulations, none of us here this evening would be allowed to go on working, since more than ten hours spent in this Chamber is scarcely compatible with these regulations. So let us be realistic, please.
The Group of the European People’s Party and European Democrats in any case calls for a significant reduction in permitted levels of noise pollution – which, in view of the international character of air travel, ought more sensibly to be regulated within the framework of the ICAO – and for noisier aircraft to be excluded from using European airports following brief transitionary periods. We hope, and are campaigning for, a situation in which the Member States of the European Commission will provide a clear mandate. If, however, we were not to obtain success at ICAO level, then we should have to take action ourselves, for Europe is densely populated and we do not have the luxury of the large distances between population centres that are to be found in America or Africa. We have to protect our citizens from unnecessary noise."@en1
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