Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-10-21-Speech-2-301"
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"en.20031021.11.2-301"2
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"Mr President, I believe that tonight’s discussion contains an internal German political element. In other words, there is a confrontation between political parties and much of the blame for the fact that we are having this discussion tonight lies with these German politicians.
Specifically, we must remember that, in 1991, the German Christian Democrat Government, when Klaus Töpfer was minister, introduced a regulation on packaged goods, which took shape in 1998 under the Environment Minister, Angela Merkel, of the CDU, and in 2001 an attempt to improve this regulation failed because the majority of the CDU in the Bundesrat blocked it, and it was therefore not possible to establish a suitable system for recovering packaging. In any event, I believe that the German Government has taken the bull by the horns and is trying to resolve a problem which today affects the whole of the European Union.
The question I would like to ask the Commissioner is to what extent the Commission and the institutions of the European Union are failing to fulfil their duty when they do not propose or adopt Community legislation to prevent this accumulation of solid waste, which is currently making it very difficult to organise the work – in cities, for example – with enormous costs for local authorities in terms of providing these resources.
I will tell you an anecdote, for example, about how on my island, which is a small island with 300 volcanoes, we began to use a volcano and it is almost full already and, in this way, before long we will not have volcanoes, but mounds of rubbish. I have the feeling, Mr President, that at the moment, and despite the fact that I think it is right for the Commission to try to harmonise measures, we must remember Articles 174 and 176 of the European Union Treaty – which are in place – which, on the one hand, empower the States to adopt measures to better protect the environment, but on the other, encourage the Community institutions to adopt general measures, so that a problem as serious as the one we have today with the accumulation of solid waste can be resolved in the only rational way, which is the Community way.
I would therefore urge the Commissioner to analyse the possibility of achieving Community legislation to harmonise the situation, and I believe that we must not restrict ourselves to using an internal political problem to cause difficulties for a European Union government."@en1
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