Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-07-07-Speech-4-008"
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"en.20050707.4.4-008"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, firstly allow me, as rapporteur, to thank the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety as a whole for the work that it has done. I should also like to thank its chairman for the support that he gave us in our work and, above all, the shadow rapporteurs, who really helped me to seek a compromise in order to propose something sensible and substantial. I should like very sincerely and officially to thank the whole of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety for following my strategy, so as to endow the Union with the necessary means to fulfil its environmental policies. Overall, I believe that we have succeeded in gaining recognition, beyond the confines of our committee, for the fact that words are no longer enough for the environment and that financial means are required, as they are for every other policy. I believe that, on that issue too, the message has got through.
With regard to the Fund for Rural Development, we are very hopeful, but we know that it only concerns compensation, which is very positive because financial compensation is needed. With regard to the Structural Funds, we know that it concerns investment. In fact we are well aware that investment is something that is strictly defined and that we do not need to build any new roads to go and discover biotopes. There is therefore a significant shortcoming. That is why we propose to take a third of the sum that you agreed, that is of the EUR 21 billion, and to add it to LIFE + so that Natura 2000 can live and can genuinely serve to protect our environment, just as we are committed to doing.
I should, moreover, like to point out that, during a debate this week, one of your colleagues, Commissioner, reminded us that we should not lose sight of the main issue. He is quite right and we are not losing sight of the main issue, as the main issue, today, really is the protection of our planet, because it is unique, because it is fragile, because it is suffering from the pressure we put on it, and we know this full well.
Today, with the European Union, we have decided to stop the haemorrhaging: we have to save what can be saved and restore what has been damaged. The European Union is aware of the challenge that it has set itself. It has already done battle and emerged victorious: Kyoto is the battle that it won, a battle for its signature, initially, and a battle for ratification later on. We can hope today that the G8 will also shoulder its responsibilities with the European countries that are going to push for measures to be taken against climate change. Neither, Commissioner, must there be any weakening of the Union’s resolve to protect the environment. On that issue, we have been rather anxious since Monday, since your president, Mr Barroso, made his statements asserting that the environment and the strategies related to it are too costly.
We believe that this really is a poor assessment. The damage, we know, is global. It is happening and the longer we wait to intervene, the higher the price that we will pay, as we all know. It is therefore up to us, Parliament, to convince the Council and the Commission that, even in lean times, investing in the environment is, as it were, a prudent subscription to an insurance policy, indeed a life-insurance policy, against the threats weighing on our environment.
This report on LIFE + is without doubt very important since it concerns the sinews of war: it is a financial instrument. The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety supports LIFE +, but we wish to improve it and we have already made that known. The former LIFE programme, with its strands on nature, the environment and third countries, had unleashed innovative political impetus and had shown that investing in the environment was the path to follow in the context of sustainable development, and that it created jobs.
With the new LIFE programme, the Commission is counting on the environment, as you explained, being integrated in the various policies. This is a good thing, we cannot deny it, but we are not convinced of the usefulness of delegating environmental policies to the Member States. It is well known that, often, the main issue for the Member States is not the environment. We will not, therefore, obtain results by renationalising the environment.
On the other hand, the European Union has to support NGOs, because they are absolutely irreplaceable and because they must be able to continue to carry out their work, which, as you mentioned, is in everyone’s interest.
Finally, we believe, as you are well aware, that the most overlooked project is Natura 2000. On that issue, in fact, we have decided to make everyone aware that Natura 2000 certainly has its costs but that it is not a bottomless pit: it is money that will be channelled into original local development based on respect for the environment and on respect for the people who work the land.
You explained to us that you were kicking things into touch and that it was the responsibility of the other policies, of the other funds to integrate Natura 2000. We waited precisely until the end of the discussions on the Structural Funds, on rural development, to find out whether in fact we had the full guarantees that Natura 2000 would be taken into consideration. I can tell you that the glass is half empty or half full, depending on how you look at it."@en1
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