Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-01-16-Speech-3-209"
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"en.20020116.14.3-209"2
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". – Mr President, while there are certainly elements worthy of praise in the Green Paper, overall we are left with the impression of a lost political opportunity. The Commission has strong institutional powers, which it could use to actively drive the IPP process. Too often we are left with the impression of a Commission that is a spectator rather than a powerful actor.
We also need more joined-up thinking, more explicit connections between the IPP project, the Sixth Environmental Action Programme and the Strategy for Sustainable Development. We would like to see those links made much more explicit.
To summarise a number of the other concerns raised by the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, we believe that the strategy tends to rely too heavily on voluntary agreements. They clearly have a role to play, but they are not a substitute for regulation; they should be seen as complementary to it. At the very least we need very clear benchmarks, objectives and timetables for any voluntary agreements so that we can ensure that they are working.
The Green Paper also focuses almost exclusively on products rather than services and therefore misses another whole raft of potential opportunities to green an increasingly large area of our economies.
Perhaps one of the major shortcomings of the Paper is its insufficient awareness of the broader international trade context, under which, unfortunately, some of its proposals would have questionable legality. The effectiveness of the IPP strategy will be severely curtailed unless the Commission explicitly recognises the reforms that would be needed to the World Trade Organisation in particular, to enable its measures to be set out.
Similarly, with respect to public procurement, greening public procurement is vitally important but there are currently obstacles in achieving that which should have been acknowledged more explicitly in the Paper, along with strategies to address the problem.
It is very significant that in its opinion the Committee of the Regions specifically refers to the restricted scope of local and regional authorities for action when it comes to green procurement and notes that legal action has already been taken against a number of towns and cities which have tried to implement a green procurement policy. Those are the kinds of areas that need to be changed. We look forward to an ambitious new White Paper in the near future."@en1
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