Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-04-28-Speech-4-038"
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"en.20050428.5.4-038"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, I, too would like to join in thanking our rapporteur, Mrs Klaß, who was very cooperative in drafting this report. One of Europe’s greatest treasures flows in our innumerable springs, streams and rivers, and so it is our responsibility to protect our water resources. It is for that reason that the protection of groundwater must be among the Community’s foremost environmental priorities. We also have to bear in mind the fact that it is much harder to remove impurities from polluted groundwater than from surface waters. It is also often used to provide drinking water, and, if it is polluted, those pollutants can be a hazard to human health, which will in turn impose a burden on our healthcare systems.
By adopting the Water Framework Directive, we agreed that Europe’s waters should be of good chemical status by 2015. These daughter directives which we are now to adopt must lay down procedures and parameters whereby this high quality standard may prevail throughout the Community. Amendments 111 and 112 are intended to enact annexes stipulating the level of these parameters. Were we not to lay down such values, this Water Framework Directive would be toothless and hard to apply. We are not, however, trying to apply the same standards to everything in the Community, but rather to ensure a high standard of quality in groundwater for the good of the public, while very definitely taking account of local and regional differences, particularly geological conditions. It is for that reason that we have tabled Amendment 91, which takes account of differing conditions throughout Europe.
What we need, though, is precise procedures and not the vague approaches that the Commission has proposed, if we are to be able to lay down these parameters. I therefore reject the Commission’s proposals for this. As for the demand for the revision and possible suspension of the Nitrates Directive, which is what is sought via Amendments 108 and 109, I am opposed to this principally on legal grounds. What agriculture throughout Europe needs is not distorted competition, but a level playing field."@en1
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