Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-05-09-Speech-1-106"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20050509.16.1-106"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
".
Mr President, I welcome the fact that the European Community has ratified the Aarhus Convention. It is a priority for us to provide a clean and safe environment for our citizens. A good environmental policy goes together with proper information on environmental matters, including pollution, possible dangers and the effects of environmental accidents. The European Union has already taken important steps to update existing legal provisions in order to meet the requirements of the Aarhus Convention.
Coming from a new Member State and as a former journalist, I totally agree with the importance of the Aarhus Convention. Former Socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe had a certain level of environmental policy, but it was strictly understood as a state policy without any kind of public participation. That is why people had such a negative feeling about the real state of play. The lack of proper information or environmental NGOs led to degree of mistrust about actual environmental performance. Even basic information on pollution was labelled a state secret. To be frank, some multinational corporations are still tempted to follow this practice today.
In order to implement the Aarhus Convention effectively we need to look at all the details and content of each and every piece of legislation. For example, the PSE Group, with our rapporteur Guido Sacconi, is very active on the new legislation on REACH and on the evaluation and authorisation of chemical substances. As regards REACH, we urgently need strong legislation providing every possible piece of information to the public on the possible dangers and risks of every chemical substance. The same applies to GMO products, pollution release, the transfer register directive, etc. All this legislation must provide the public with the right of access to information that is of concern to it.
If we ratify the Aarhus Convention, we must put it into practice in our legislation day by day. The forthcoming meeting to be held in Almaty, Kazakhstan, is very important. When we talk about access to information, the public must be sufficiently involved and informed. We should begin by looking at the discussion on the Convention, where the participation of the parliamentarians of this House is guaranteed, as they are the representatives of the European citizens."@en1
|
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples