Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-01-13-Speech-2-269"
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"en.20040113.11.2-269"2
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".
I totally agree with the honourable Member that obsolete pesticides are a real and serious problem, not just in Ukraine; they are a common problem in all too many post-Soviet regions, as well as in some acceding and candidate countries. The estimate is that in Ukraine there are perhaps up to 20 000 tonnes of these pesticides in 5000 locations and, as the honourable Member knows, they can affect human health because of the contamination of groundwaters, soil, food and even air.
The honourable Member mentioned Chernobyl: I was there recently. We have dedicated a lot of time and a great deal of money to that extraordinarily difficult and dangerous environmental issue. There we are working with the government of Ukraine, which wishes to take that as a priority. It has not been easy even in those circumstances. What is more difficult for us, is to insist on our priorities through a programme such as Tacis, in which the partner country is supposed to take ownership of the programme we are helping to support.
I can assure the honourable Member that we will continue to raise this issue and other environmental issues in the relevant subcommittee of the partnership and cooperation agreement. We will raise this issue during those meetings and if the government in Ukraine says it would like us to focus some of our spending on this issue, we would be delighted to look at that. But the figures involved are very substantial. It is reckoned that it would cost at least EUR 100 million for the elimination of the problem I described earlier, and that is why, in our judgment, it is probably more helpful to turn to the global environmental facility in order to secure an objective which the honourable Member is quite right to highlight."@en1
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