Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-06-12-Speech-1-120"
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"en.20060612.18.1-120"2
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"Mr President, I too should like to start by thanking Mrs Klaß for her efforts. I particularly appreciated that whenever I wanted to see her, she was always available, even if we did not always see eye to eye. Everyone is, of course – as has been said many times – in favour of clean groundwater. There is an expression in Dutch that says: prevention is better than cure. If that is the shape of things to come, then we can only applaud this.
I share Mr Blokland's view that it is vital that we should include in the compromise something about measuring methods. What matters most to me is that those measuring methods will not be the same across the entire European Union. They will need to be different on a sandy soil from what they are on clay and may need to be different in a short growing season than in a long one.
Something that still causes me concern at the moment, and I have tabled amendments to that effect – and I do not always quote Mr Blokland, but he did raise the same subject this evening – is the relationship with other, existing legislation. The nitrate directive springs to mind, in particular. Is there the risk that Brussels will keep on piling one law on top of another without knowing what they are doing? According to the Nitrate Directive, 1.7 large cattle unit may be kept per hectare. According to the Groundwater Directive, groundwater should not contain more than 50 milligrammes of nitrate.
Imagine the following situation arises. A farmer keeps five cows per hectare and the nitrate content of his groundwater is 30 milligrammes. He is not complying with the Nitrate Directive, but he is with the Groundwater Directive. Which directive will prevail in that case? This sort of duplication in legislation requires a clear response. Hence my amendment that, when a progress report is issued, which it will be, then the Commission should give it its due attention.
Although I can hardly imagine that someone should be opposed to this, I heard the rapporteur say that she is. I find this not only astonishing, but also regrettable, since all I am asking for is a better assessment in order to avoid duplication in legislation. This also applies to the discharge of manure, for that matter, for which legislation is already in place.
We must avoid the average European citizen getting the impression that we are fabricating some sort of bureaucratic monster over which he has no control but which he has to obey unquestioningly. We in the Netherlands learned a great deal when we voted on the European Constitution more than a year ago. One of the arguments was clear: we do not want this bureaucratic monster in Brussels, and I am a little concerned that we, with this duplication in legislation, run a considerable risk of ending up with one after all. Hence my amendments."@en1
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