Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-11-18-Speech-2-283"
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"en.20031118.10.2-283"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to congratulate Mr Blokland on his sound, clear report. After 28 years, environmental dumping is still a major problem. One reason for this is that environmental standards are not the same everywhere, the main reason for this being that there is great disagreement over what recovery actually entails. There is a lack of clear criteria. The European Commission has blundered here. It should have taken the initiative in providing clarity many years ago. Sadly, however, the Commission gave in to pressure from the waste industry, which prefers to continue to dump waste.
The Court of Justice of the European Communities in Luxembourg has now made a couple of rulings in this legal void, but these do not provide a definite answer either to the question as to what exactly constitutes recovery and what does not. Incinerating everything is not recovery, in the opinion of my group. Sadly, that is now the case – by definition. Recovery implies a usefulness that is not present in the incineration of newspapers; recycling paper is much more useful. Obviously, once paper has been recycled five to seven times it can no longer be recycled, and then incineration could indeed be useful. Even the incineration of sewage sludge is deemed useful – by definition. It is highly doubtful whether that is advisable, however. If the sludge has leaked out, that would perhaps be useful, but definitely not if it is soaked in water.
We must now hold this political debate. The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy has done so. Tomorrow we shall also be voting on amendments. Since the Commission has not provided any clarity, we shall have to do it. It makes no sense to wait for a thematic strategy before thinking of introducing further legislation. We would then be five years down the line. We should try to fill this gap now – for better or worse."@en1
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