Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-01-16-Speech-3-195"
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"en.20020116.13.3-195"2
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"Mr President, I hope we can get agreement on the Sixth Environmental Action Programme, preferably without going into conciliation. I would like, on behalf of the committee, to thank Mrs Müller for the immense amount of work she has put into this report. I underline my support for the amount of work she has done because I actually disagree with many of the conclusions she has come to. Nevertheless, we have dealt with this matter so extensively that we will probably not gain anything by extending the process to the full beauties of late-night conciliation in Brussels.
The amendments tabled by the committee and the rapporteur do not really add up to anything of substance and, where they do, the results would probably be to damage the chances of success of the Environmental Action Programme. I draw your attention to Amendment No 11, which is already out of date.
I would criticise, as Mr Bernié has done, the reliance of the rapporteur to a considerable extent on jargon. Old war horses are trotted out again and given one more exhausted run around the course. The chemical industry is focused on as the villain of the piece and the substitution principle makes a well-earned reappearance in the amendments that the committee has asked the House to consider. The assumption of at least Amendment No 1 – and to some extent Amendment No 30 – is that the substitution principle exists as a fully worked-out concept. It does not. It is an amalgam of assumptions and suspicions fudged together by the green movement as a universal panacea. The amendments talk of this as a fully worked-out policy, but we should at least be consistent. The Schörling report, which we voted on a few months ago, called on the Commission to produce a definition of the substitution policy principle, so we can hardly deal with it now as though it really is in existence.
Do we need a Sixth Environmental Action Programme? I do not share the cynicism and despair of some in the ELDR Group. Some sort of route map or check list is helpful and desirable. The Commission probably built on previous mistakes by attaching so much weight to the idea of a programme. The poor Commissioner wanted a slim programme and has ended up with a fatty!
I also regret – and she may regret – the submission of the programme to full codecision because that has certainly lengthened the process without adding to the substance. The best part of the Environmental Action Programme for me is the concentration on better implementation. In the old days we wanted an action programme in order to put pressure on the Council to agree to legislation. Now the trouble is that the Council does agree to legislation and then does very little about it.
Without better implementation we are deceiving the people of Europe into believing that things are getting better and better, in the words of the old Labour Party advertisement. Just as at home in UK things are not getting better and better, the words remain easy to say but they are often not followed by action and it is up to us to see that they are."@en1
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