Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-10-24-Speech-1-150"
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"en.20051024.19.1-150"2
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".
Mr President, to start with I wish to thank the European Parliament, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety and, in particular, the rapporteur, Mrs Doyle, for her excellent work on the present report at second reading.
The Commission considers many of the remaining changes incorporated into the common position and the amendments proposed in Parliament to be improvements to its original proposal. They do indeed improve the definitions and clarify the text; at the same time, they strengthen transparency and accountability.
The Commission has also accepted certain amendments in the common position, such as the new article on labelling, which goes far beyond its original proposal, and such as the article on the review of the regulation, which has been considerably strengthened and is now more specific.
As far as the directive on emissions from MAC systems is concerned, the Commission supports Parliament's proposal for the gradual abolition of fluorinated greenhouse gases from MACs, using the type approval procedure, rather than a system of transferable quotas. There is convergence of opinions between Parliament, the Council and the Commission on this issue.
The Commission is willing to look positively at every possibility for compromise which may arise in relation to the amendments voted by Parliament.
I hope that we shall manage to complete the procedure on the present matter as quickly as possible. We need the new regulation and the new directive without delay, so that they can start to contribute towards the limitation of emissions of fluorinated gases. They will thus make it easier for us to honour our commitments within the framework of the Kyoto Protocol and beyond.
In addition, it is clear that this will send a real positive and timely message as we set in motion – today to be precise – the second stage of the European programme on climate change.
The proposals we are debating today are an important part of Community policy on climate change. Fluorinated gases are very strong greenhouse gases. In the European programme on climate change, legislation which limits emissions of fluorinated gases has been called one of the measures of crucial importance in order for the European Union to achieve its objective within the framework of the Kyoto Protocol.
The draft proposals being debated today will help considerably in reducing emissions of greenhouse gases in the European Union. This reduction is calculated at approximately 21 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent a year up to 2010 and at 40 to 50 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent a year after 2020, once the proposed measures have been fully applied.
The Commission proposal on fluorinated gases was debated in the Council during the Irish and Dutch Presidencies and it soon became clear that it would have to be reformulated to some degree. The Council decided, in the end, to change the form of the Commission proposal, but kept it as a package of measures, with a directive especially on the question of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) in vehicle mobile air-conditioning systems (MACs) and a regulation covering the remaining issues in the original proposal.
The Council also agreed that the directive should be based on Article 95 alone, in that it would come under the type approval system, and that the regulation should have as its legal basis Article 175, in conjunction with Article 95 as far as Articles 7, 8 and 9 of the regulation are concerned.
The Commission agreed to this change, given that the two elements qualify as an overall package which safeguards the environmental aims of the original proposal. The change in form also reflects Parliament's wish to address the question of MAC systems through type approval legislation.
I should like to emphasise here that I shall be closely monitoring developments with certain outstanding issues in Parliament and in the Council, especially the very serious issue of the legal basis, it being the wish of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety that the regulation on fluorinated gases be based solely on Article 175. The outcome of the vote on this question in plenary will be especially important.
I should also like to add that the Commission welcomes measures which have been taken by various Member States to reduce greenhouse gases. Recent reports show that several Member States will need additional measures to achieve the objectives to which they have committed. Consequently, actions to restrict fluorinated gases are one effective means towards this objective. The Commission merely wishes to ensure that these measures and these actions do not infringe other obligations in the Treaties which the Member States must honour, especially with regard, for example, to the internal market.
As regards the amendments proposing additional bans on the placing on the market, the Commission has always maintained that, before a decision is taken as to the extent to which a product or item of equipment containing fluorinated gases must be banned, a full technical and economic evaluation is required. However, this has not been done for the new bans proposed by the Committee on the Environment. It is worth noting that, within the framework of the review, four years after the regulation entered into force, provision is made for examining possible additional bans."@en1
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