Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-03-13-Speech-2-216"
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"en.20010313.15.2-216"2
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"Mr President, it is the custom to start with thanks and I, as rapporteur, have every reason to do that now. The directive on public access to environmental information was already an excellent and ambitious proposal when it left the hands of the Commission. Along the way we have enjoyed excellent cooperation, and it has been easy for us to understand each other’s objectives. Furthermore, the representatives of the Council – I refer to both those of France and Sweden – have been encouraging and well-informed about the matter. I am also grateful for the attitude adopted by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy. I was delighted that all twenty-five of my amendments were adopted by the committee; moreover, there were some important additions contributed by committee members.
This is a report which is significant, not just for the individual citizen, but also for the Community’s environmental policy. Access to information is an important horizontal instrument in EU environmental policy, and the revision of the directive has taken a long time. The proposal for the directive has three principal aims: to benefit from the experience gained under the old directive dating from 1990 and to correct the shortcomings identified in it, to incorporate the relevant parts of the Aarhus Convention into the new directive, and to adapt the old directive to developments in information technology.
I think that one of the most important factors in my own report is first the obligation to establish registers. It is a precondition of the viability of this directive. A member of the public must be able to know what documents are available and what authorities are responsible for what. I noted with satisfaction that Mr Cashman, in his own report on transparency, calls for exactly the same thing.
I also focused on some details relating to the refusal to disclose information. If the request for information is denied on the grounds that it is incomplete the applicant must nevertheless be told when the information will be available and which authority is responsible. Another clarification regarding the refusal to disclose information concerns the exceptions in Article 4(2). An exception to these exceptions is emissions in connection with commercial and industrial confidentiality, which always have to be disclosed. I tabled an amendment that recommended the disclosure of information on emissions even when there was some other kind of data protection involved. The adverse effects of emissions do not depend on the nature of the work that produced them; from the point of view of public health and safety, it makes no difference whether the source is a public or commercial one.
I deemed it necessary to introduce a whole new article on the quality of environmental information. Quality is obviously a major factor when assessing the significance of the directive. In my study of the directive it hit me that no comprehensive harmonisation of emission measurement procedures had been called for in this connection. It does actually make a difference whether we measure emissions from a pipe or in a butterfly net a kilometre away. In other words, there must be information given on the methods used in taking measurements.
One awkward question in this directive concerned the definition of an authority: do the rules apply to the authorities in the conventional sense or do they also include a body that has been delegated to carry out an official task, such as a company which maintains possession of information legally entrusted to it by virtue of an agreement it has made with an authority? We have now found a format that, hopefully, will be appropriate for most Member States.
There has been a good deal of consensus regarding this directive. When I have rejected amendments, I have done so mainly because of considerations of style. This is a framework directive, and its purpose is not to wish the world all that is fine and good about transparency. As a legislative text is may also be more effective if it remains narrow in scope.
Some members of the committee wanted to tighten up the time limits set for the authorities to respond. The Commission’s proposal shortens the time limit to a month and, if the volume and complexity of the information required so demands, two months. In all cases, however, a reply is required as soon as possible. I still consider this to be a realistic objective, although, in some cases, shortening the time limit might even have a negative effect on the quality of the response. I do not therefore support the committee’s proposals for a more stringent attitude.
Viewed generally, we can imagine this directive will set a standard for Member States regarding the transparency of environmental information. The amendment I tabled in Article 8(2) is based on the notion that the same standard should also apply to the EU institutions. In this way, this directive will positively promote transparency throughout the EU."@en1
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