Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-11-13-Speech-2-338"
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"en.20011113.13.2-338"2
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"Mr President, I hope the Commissioner has caught up on her sleep after another succesful climate change conference.
It all seemed very easy when the Commissioner first put the plan to us. She said that we use tens of thousands of chemicals in Europe. They are essential to our way of life but there is very little public information about them and the real fear is that some of them may be causing long-term damage to the environment and human health. So we must get the information, we must carry out the tests and, while keeping the good and maintaining a strong European chemicals industry, we must identify the bad and weed them out.
But that was a few months ago. In the meantime all of us have learnt a great deal from the lobbyists about the difficulties of putting the policy into practice, as is well illustrated by the difficulty of identifying even the number of chemicals we are talking about. Sometimes we hear of 30 000, sometimes of 100 000 – quite a big difference.
At least the chemical industry says it is in favour and supports the Commission's objectives, but it warns that the proposals are impractical, will increase bureaucracy and will be immensely costly. The testing regime, it says, will cause paralysis of the whole system, especially if we extend the requirements. Millions of animals will be killed painfully and perhaps unnecessarily in order to meet the testing requirements.
All these concerns need to be taken into account. When the draft directive comes before us, I will be listening very carefully to industry's complaints. I recognise that in environmental matters we often hear industry crying wolf, but even so we must ensure that new requirements placed upon the companies are realistic and practical and that they enhance rather than damage a very important business.
This is only a White Paper. In making recommendations, I support Mrs Schörling in asking the Commission to strengthen its environmental commitments, rather than relax them. But in reality we will probably end up following the Council of Ministers in passing the buck back to the Commission, asking you to find a way around the obstacle course and giving an absolute guarantee that we will criticise you, whatever proposals you come up with."@en1
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