Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-02-11-Speech-2-166"
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"en.20030211.7.2-166"2
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Mr President, I would firstly like to thank Mr Caveri for the work he has done on an issue which – as we have seen here today – is very difficult and delicate. There are a range of interests, all of them legitimate but entirely contradictory, which are in opposition to each other. I would simply like to point out to certain Members that we need a quick resolution, because the current transitional situation ends on 31 December 2003.
Therefore, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we can accept six amendments, one of them a fundamental issue and, if necessary, with some modifications to the wording of the text, Amendments Nos 1, 5, 11, 12 and the first sentence of No 15 and of No 18.
I would like to say to you that the real solution is to build the Brenner, to build the Lyon-Turin, that intermodality truly be established. Those are the solutions.
You must understand that we have to seek a compromise and that a solution is urgently required. We do not have many months. And the perfect is always the enemy of the good. I say this to everyone. I would ask you to cooperate so that, amongst all of us, we can resolve this problem, which is very sensitive in one of the countries of the Union. We must seek a response and achieve a result which allows progress to be made, while we present proposals which serve to provide a more rational system of charging for infrastructures throughout the European Union.
I would once again like to congratulate Mr Caveri on the difficult work he has done in trying to seek a formula acceptable to everyone and, in any event, the Commission will, of course, take very good note of what Parliament says as always and will try to include these elements in the basis of an agreement acceptable to Parliament and to the Council.
Secondly, the current situation is transitional. In other words, what appears in the accession Treaty, the protocol on which the whole system of ecopoints is based, lays down a limited time period.
Thirdly, we must be aware that the other fourteen countries of the European Union are accepting the idea of making an effort and an exception in order to satisfy Austria with regard to what is one of the essential freedoms of European integration – initially of the Common Market and now of the European Union – which is freedom of transit for people.
On this basis, the Commission presented a proposal which suggested an extension for a maximum of three years – year by year – of the current system, in order to allow time to seek general rules which of course will not mean for Austria or anybody the maintenance of the ecopoints system or any similar system. I say this because it is obvious that it is not now a question of seeking a system which is radically different to the ecopoints system, since it is going to have a restricted minimal period in force. I would insist that we are seeking a transitional system so that Austria, which participates in the ecopoints system, may arrive, together with the other 14 countries – 24 within a few months – at a common system and a better assumption of the external costs of the different infrastructures throughout the European Union, without exceptions for anybody. It is therefore a transitional exception which must be based, in principle, on the current system because for two or three years it would not make much sense.
In Mr Caveri’s proposal there are points which take the same approach as the principle for agreement proposed by the Danish Presidency on 31 December. This represents a compromise and I am happy that there is agreement, for example, on the idea of banning the most polluting lorries; on the idea of freeing the least polluting lorries from the ecopoints system; on establishing an annual duration of a transitional system up to a maximum of three years. However, there are provisions which we believe will make it difficult for the Commission to reach an agreement with the Council – I would make this very clear – and which would provide more problems than solutions.
This is the case with the reduction of the scope of the system to just the Austrian Alps, which are genuinely of the greatest sensitivity, because in the other areas of Austria the sensitivity – and many of the speakers were right – is identical to that of other areas of Europe. However, while I understand this in principle, it would create enormous difficulties in terms of managing the project. I would therefore ask that the general area of Austria be maintained. Furthermore, in the Council we have debated whether or not to exclude the Hörbranz Pass, the Lindau-St. Margarethen, which involves a stretch of road of less than 15 kilometres, a very short distance. That would also raise problems. I would therefore ask you not to retain this part, please.
The provisions of the system of contingents, which vary according to categories, would also raise difficulties. Furthermore, the number of ecopoints set relates to the current Member States, and to apply the system now to the future countries would complicate matters even further.
Let us hope that before they join as full Members this problem has been resolved definitively.
Furthermore, we ask that you do not insist on the reintroduction of the 108% clause, because we cannot maintain and represent something which – I can tell you – the Council would never accept and which the Commission also rejected. Furthermore, that clause did not appear in the proposal."@en1
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