Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-05-09-Speech-1-087"
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"en.20050509.15.1-087"2
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"Mr President, this is a very useful and important revision of the 1976 Directive. We should remember that it does mean real improvements in water quality within the ‘good’ and ‘excellent’ categories now proposed. It will enable the bathing water directive to be better focused, with clearer and more demanding rules, and I underline that it is ambitious.
The implementation of the 1976 Directive has taken 30 years at least and cost a lot of money. I represent the South-West of England, where we have spent more than GBP 1 billion – I am sorry I am not speaking in euros – in clearing up the bathing beaches around the coast of that region of England alone. That has meant a 15% year-on-year increase in water rates and I do not think people will be prepared to pay a lot more for a much more demanding directive.
There are obviously two problems. Unlike Mr Blokland, I am in favour of keeping the category of ‘sufficient’. I know that some want to delete it, but it seems to me that given that the new ‘good’ and ‘excellent’ standards are much tougher, and that even with investment some beaches may fail, especially after rain, we need the ‘sufficient’ category as a sort of probationary category. I would like to hear what the Commissioner thinks of Amendment 36. Does he think it is an efficient way of dealing with this issue and can he forecast the Council’s likely attitude to it?
Finally, on the question of recreational waters: I think that all the recreational water amendments are rather silly, because the definition is too wide to be meaningful. If you set out from Cornwall and try to get to Florida in a canoe, you are turning the entire Atlantic into recreational water and I do not think that is worth it. I have seen no estimates of cost from any of the Greens who tabled these amendments: I do not think any exist.
There is also the question of practicality. I highlight the fact that the British Canoe Union is begging us not to support the extension of this directive to recreational waters. I note that the British organisation Surfers Against Sewage says: ‘The impact of the directive will be felt particularly at the Canoe Union’s national watersports centre, where poor water quality is routinely thought to put young people at risk’. The British Canoe Union says: ‘Significantly, the health risk to canoeists in the water in the UK is very low and on this basis we query the justification to include recreational waters and activities in the directive’.
I wish this directive well. I remember the 1976 one when it first came forward. This is a great improvement and we should remember that."@en1
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