Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-05-09-Speech-1-079"
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"en.20050509.15.1-079"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, what should and should not fall within the EU’s remit and, where rules are concerned, why not take the foot off the accelerator once in a while? These are among the questions raised by this directive, not only in the form originally proposed by the Commission but also, of course, in the Council’s common position, which is before us now. The Bathing Water Directive dates back to 1976 and since then, a great deal has changed, not only in terms of how we think about the environment, but also about what exactly must be regulated at what level and how.
You can, of course – as indeed I did – question how useful it is to determine at European level the standards with which bathing water and coastal and inland waters in the European Union must comply, whether we should lay this down at European level and whether European action in this area represents any added value. This House decided, at first reading, that it did, but – and actually more importantly – so did the Member States. Even the Member States that one would be inclined to regard as perfectly capable of determining this for themselves considered a new bathing water directive to be necessary. Who are we then to claim the opposite? Why do governments opt in favour of the new bathing water directive? The main reason why they do so is that the old directive is unworkable and, in environmental terms, pre-historic.
The old directive was based on monitoring and measuring rather than the pro-active and sensible management of bathing water. With its proposal, the Commission decided to change this, and I think it was right to do so. The new directive must be implementable, flexible and geared towards the management of bathing water and towards deregulation, and must certainly cut down on red tape. It should, for example, be possible to be more flexible when measurements are taken: if bathing water in a certain location has been clean for years, it should be possible to reduce its measuring frequency. That is what the Commission proposed and what this House and subsequently the Council adopted, which is definitely progress.
The directive is also popular among the public at large, something that is not unimportant during this time of referendums. It is one of the most well-known directives among the European public who each year, anxiously await the new figures. It has also been a successful one; about ten years ago, only some 60% of bathing water was acceptable, compared to 95% these days, which is excellent. This House does believe, though, and this is how the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety voted, that the information which should be available to the public should mainly pertain to current water quality. I have put this to the test and picked a random location in Europe which is the base of a prominent Member of the Commission, namely Athens, to examine the bathing water quality there.
We did some research on the Internet this afternoon, but the most recent data, regrettably, was that for water quality in 2003, which is, of course, no indication as to whether or not it is still safe to swim near Athens. It could well be that this information is available from the site of the Greek Ministry of Health and Welfare, but I would not be able to read it because that information is in Greek. That is also the reason why, according to this House, current information should be made available and symbols should be used which can be developed by the Commission and are recognisable around the European Union by all citizens. At present, information is trailing behind and can be traced via the Internet only with difficulty, quite apart from the fact that most tourists do not – or so I hope – take their laptops with them on holiday or, at any rate, not to the beach.
According to the standards of the old directive, there is a one in eight health risk. One in eight bathers, according to current standards, runs the risk of becoming ill. We should not underestimate those health risks, which include stomach and abdominal disorders, skin, eye and respiratory tract complaints and outer ear infections. With the standards proposed by the Commission and this House’s Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, one in twenty bathers become ill. This may still be too many, but is at least a step forward, while the Council’s common position is satisfied with one in nine. I can understand the position of the governments who want the system to be affordable. Parliament should, in my view, take this into consideration and that is why I regret that there was no far-reaching agreement between the Council and Parliament at second reading.
A number of very interesting amendments have been tabled. As far as deleting or adjusting the category ‘sufficient’ is concerned, I think that if amendments of that kind were adopted, then that would at least stand us as Parliament in good stead at conciliation stage, enabling us, together with the Council, to arrive at a solution which is beneficial to bathers and consumers, and on the basis of which we can conclude that the quality of bathing water is really significantly improving, which is what the Commission wanted in its original proposal. We should, however, also find a solution that benefits the governments and that is more workable, leads to deregulation and is also affordable, because that is, of course, an important factor. It is also for that reason that I think that we should not include recreational waters in this directive, but should do so at some point in the future. I have no problems talking about it, but now is not the right time to bring this up in this manner.
On a final note, I have noticed that the Commission was rather reluctant to add a statement to the Council position. In any case, it wants continued scrutiny of the values in the future. I find this very useful, because it goes without saying that we need to continue to make adjustments in the future. This will, hopefully, be done according to the usual procedure in consultation with this House."@en1
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