Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-12-12-Speech-1-085"
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"en.20051212.14.1-085"2
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"Mr President, I would like to start by extending warm thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Blokland, for the work he has done. Important though the protection of the environment is – as one who concerns myself with environmental policy, I have set it as my declared objective – we must find a way of balancing the environment against legitimate business interests. My particular concern today is with the ban on nickel-cadmium batteries in power tools. To ban them outright, whether now or after a transitional period of four years – which is what the rapporteur proposes – would be going too far.
As a substitute for that, I prefer to back the Common Position and Mr Krahmer’s Amendment 45, which make provision for a review of the derogation from the ban for nickel-cadmium batteries in power tools after four and seven and a half years respectively. It would then be considered whether equivalent alternatives existed and whether a ban on nickel-cadmium batteries was reasonable and justified – which, as things stand at the moment, it is not.
While there are already, in many areas, technological alternatives to nickel-cadmium on the market, nickel-metal hybrids being one example, these alternatives cannot as yet be regarded as equivalent to nickel-cadmium, as demonstrated
by various differences, for example the fact that the lifetime of nickel-cadmium batteries is longer than that of their nickel-metal hybrid counterparts, and they are less susceptible to faults and defects. Nickel-cadmium batteries can be charged up more quickly and discharge themselves much more slowly when out of use. It is also worthy of note that nickel-metal hybrid batteries do not function when the temperature falls below 10° Celsius.
It is the desire for a consolidated market position that motivates manufacturers to develop more and more new technologies, but a ban at the present time or in four years’ time would be counterproductive, for they would have to change over their production methods to handle a type of technology that is not yet fully developed, while the research and development sector would not be able to come up with financial resources that this would demand. A ban would therefore do nothing to foster innovation in the field of new technologies nor, consequently, anything to benefit the environment either, and we surely cannot want that. I will close by expressing my support for Articles 95 and 175 as a dual legal basis."@en1
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