Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-02-27-Speech-3-072"
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"en.20020227.6.3-072"2
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"Mr President, this is a debate which is going to take very different routes depending on which committees Members sit on. As a Member of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, I want to concentrate on environmental issues in the context of Barcelona.
Finally, a word on the dreaded Spanish hydrological plan which has moved across the screen of the European Parliament increasingly frequently. It is not a good idea to condemn one Member State for action taken in good faith by a democratically elected government. In this instance, the Spanish government has submitted an environmental impact assessment in relation to the plan and the European Commission is considering it. This is not the point at which we should start condemning Spain.
The Spanish hydrological plan will be a very difficult issue for the British Labour Members of the European Parliament to decide how they are going to vote. Even at this moment, Mr Tony Blair is desperately cultivating Mr Aznar as an ally, so the British Labour Members are caught between supporting their Prime Minister and voting against Mrs Roth-Behrendt who has tabled the amendment. That is not an enviable position to be in and I do not envy them.
The first thing is to stress the importance which the Committee on the Environment, and I hope the European Parliament, places on the addition of an environmental dimension to the Lisbon Process of annual assessment of economic growth and social cohesion. Indeed, we were really rather surprised in the Committee on the Environment that the environmental pillar of sustainable development should not be considered of equal importance to the social and economic pillars.
I would like to take this opportunity of expressing thanks on behalf of myself and my colleagues to the European Environment Agency for the work that it has done in relation to the environmental indicators. The director of the Environment Agency, Mr Beltrán, will be retiring soon and we are very grateful for the work that he has done.
It is also important that we should not leave these indicators floating in the air while congratulating ourselves on the fact that we have produced them. In the view of the Environment Committee, it is very important that we link their production to clear targets and timetables for the work of the Commission and of the Parliament.
I would make a domestic point to my colleagues here, namely that we really address the issue of sustainable development better in this Parliament. We ought to organise, for example, an annual debate with an annual assessment of progress in all our committee areas. It is essential to continue to see that environmental considerations are taken into account in other policies. This is something which environment commissioner, Mrs Wallström, has always been very keen on. She faces a tremendous uphill struggle.
One policy which illustrates the desperate need for environmental considerations to be taken into account within it is fisheries. I represent the south west of England. We have a number of fishing ports and we are currently facing the consequences of a desperate failure to take environmental considerations into account when operating the Common Fisheries Policy. We have exhausted fish stocks. We have fishermen with no fish to catch. We have dead dolphins being washed up on the beaches of Brittany and Cornwall because industrial trawlers are trawling them up in the middle of the channel and then leaving them for dead. That is a very good example of non-sustainable development and the Parliament ought to get involved in doing something about it.
Sustainable development is going to be very important in the context of enlargement. The likelihood is that the applicant states in eastern and central Europe will want to be like us as soon as possible – heaven help them. That means that they will want more roads, more cars, more transport emissions and so on. More damage to the environment will probably be done and we have to find a way, without being culturally imperialist about it, to ensure that rapid economic development in the countries of eastern and central Europe does not damage the environment, particularly the natural environment, in the new Member States.
Rio and the Rio Summit is going to bring forth an absolute cascade of words. Whether or not Rio means anything and brings about any concrete results remains to be seen. It is a pity that the Commission has produced its document so late that we cannot give at this point our collective view in the context of Barcelona. That document for Rio contains some very good points, especially the emphasis on providing incentives for environmentally and socially sustainable trade. One thing I would highlight from the position of the Environment Committee is the need for the European Union to sort itself out when it comes to addressing the issue of genetically modified production in the countries of the third world.
In December in South Africa there was news of a large increase in the acreage in South Africa which is under cultivation for genetically modified products. What is our message to a country like that? Do we say that the more you produce of that, the less you can export to us? Is that going to be a sustainable message to give them when they want to make a living for themselves?"@en1
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