Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-09-24-Speech-2-036"
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"en.20020924.3.2-036"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner Wallström always brings a light and happy touch to our proceedings and we are grateful for that. The severity of some of the remarks you will hear from the floor today do not reflect on her, but on the fact that she is caught in one institution which is now on a collision course with another.
The rapporteur said that those listening to us in the gallery today may be curious as to what the word 'comitology' means. Some of us are too. Our visitors should not go away with the feeling that comitology could be effectively translated as a lateral means whereby the Commission can frustrate the will of the Parliament. We are an elected institution. We have certain powers. They have been extended. They are still not all that considerable, but we know where the boundaries are.
On this issue I must say to the Commissioner – and I hope she will take this back to Mr Liikanen – that we in this House have had a debate which has continued through a number of Parliaments, through pretty much the entire parliamentary lifetime of everyone sitting in this Chamber now, from 1993 onwards. In 1997 the Commission purported to give itself a further power of delay and that was extended, although challenged, because all of us here – and everyone who serves as I do on the Conciliation Committee – agree with the rapporteur in acknowledging the difficulties which arise where there are not yet viable alternatives to some forms of animal testing. That is perfectly taken into account in the deliberations we have had, which estimate that it may take another decade to reach the point and the conclusion that we all want.
But what happens in the meantime? What happens if this conciliation fails? We are not talking then of something which is only temporary, only due to last for the duration of the present conciliation. We are talking of something quite different. I would like to read to the Commissioner the fifth paragraph of the vice-chairman's letter, written on behalf of our committee, to Commissioner Liikanen. He says that the Commission exercised its powers – which are disputed anyway – in 1997. When the implementation date for the marketing of animal-tested cosmetics was postponed to 30 June 2002 by Directive 2000/41, this postponement was to be – to quote the words of Recital 10 – for the 'last time'. Now here we are again – and it is not the last time, it is the penultimate time. Or is it just one in a whole series of delays and frustrations?
If you have an elected Parliament you have to listen to what it says, otherwise these people in the gallery are wasting their time and we are wasting our time in coming here. Commissioner, you must go back and say to Mr Liikanen that he should think again."@en1
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