Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-10-02-Speech-2-280"
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"en.20011002.12.2-280"2
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"Madam President, Madam Vice-President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin by thanking the rapporteur, Mrs McNally, on behalf of my group for undertaking this technically difficult task and for the tough way she negotiated with the Council, because Parliament’s rights were at stake. She was in a way having to negotiate a precedent and she showed great commitment and was very successful on Parliament’s behalf.
I would also like to thank the Vice-President of the Commission, who over all has worked very energetically for a European contribution to solving our energy problems. I think we are all agreed that the more efficient use of energy is a very important contribution to solving our energy problems. Modern technology offers us ways of saving energy and using it more efficiently. If we do that correctly, it is actually to everyone’s advantage. The costs of such technical innovations are small enough to be written off within months or a few years at the most, which means it is to the consumer’s overall advantage and it also gives industry an opportunity to bring its innovations on to the market.
Here we are looking at one way, namely the Label. It is an important step because it gives us influence over world standards since the Energy Star is used not only in the USA and in Europe, but in other countries besides. When I took on the task of being my group's shadow rapporteur, I asked firms in my constituency that are concerned with the subject, those that sell or make computers, for example, what they thought about it. They said the Label alone would probably not achieve much because, when consumers buy computers and similar goods, unfortunately they do not pay attention to energy consumption so much as to various other criteria. So we should perhaps talk about finding other ways of promoting energy-efficient equipment and gradually removing the big energy wasters from the market.
The amendment in front of us says, after all, that one such way forward might be a voluntary agreement with industry. We should only think about legislation if that fails to work. I believe that to be very, very important because, as the rapporteur has said, we are debating here about an agreement with the USA and about a Label, but the solution to the problem does not lie in this Label alone. I am therefore asking the Commissioner to make very clear in her speech that the Commission is thinking of going further and also to say when we can expect other proposals. I don’t believe any of us would gain from having to engage in a lengthy conciliation procedure because of an amendment being tabled. If we achieve a good outcome this evening, we can avoid the conciliation procedure. Otherwise conciliation would be necessary and I am sure we all want to avoid that."@en1
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