Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-12-11-Speech-1-082"
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"en.20061211.14.1-082"2
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"Mr President, the original purpose of REACH was to protect people and the environment. The beneficial effects of increased knowledge and of developing better ways of using chemicals should include economic advantages. In November
published a report showing that 200 common chemicals cause brain damage, difficulties in concentrating, behavioural disorders and lower intelligence. How are we to obtain a society based on knowledge, innovation and development when we needlessly allow chemicals that reduce intelligence and make it difficult to concentrate?
Ladies and gentlemen, we have had many long meetings. Again and again, it has been confirmed that a qualified majority here in Parliament thinks it self-evident that consumer products containing dangerous substances should always be replaced with less dangerous alternatives when these are available. Again and again, we have agreed that chemical safety reports should be introduced for all low-volume chemicals. Again and again, we have emphasised the importance of transparency and openness and laughed at how absurd it is that the board that is to take important decisions about the future of chemicals should be secret and have secret financial interests.
We have thought it self-evident that companies should be responsible for their products and have also taken decisions that would give small companies fair conditions. Now, at the eleventh hour when things are getting serious, a majority of you have chosen not to care about these objectives and, instead, to leap into the German chemicals industry’s unsafe embrace. In spite of the fact that the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety demanded substantial improvements in REACH, the last trialogue only made things worse. It was the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats that played the chemical industry’s game, but why did the others join in?
REACH should now instead be called RISK, standing for the registration but inadequate substitution of chemicals. The last time we voted on REACH, the Socialist Group in the European Parliament and the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe came to an agreement with the Right on the registration aspect. This time, you have come to an agreement on the whole of REACH. On the previous occasion, Mr Sacconi said that an agreement is like an apple: it must be picked when it is ripe. After the debate, you gave me the apple. A year later, it is now a perfectly disgusting and soggy lump. I have therefore brought a new apple with me to give to you. Keep it for a few years until the overhaul of REACH, when it will smell putrid and remind you to come to an agreement with another majority. What would be better by far is if you were to come to an agreement with ourselves on the alternative compromise, symbolised by the core of this apple. Let us regard this apple core as symbolising a REACH that grows and takes root, a REACH from which we shall be able to reap environmental and public health benefits in decades to come, instead of selling windfalls to the nations of Europe.
It is you who must choose. Do you want a REACH apple that turns rotten or a core that grows? In politics, nothing is won unless risks are taken. You should dare to take this last opportunity now, obtain a clear majority in Parliament and negotiate openly with the Council. We can never obtain anything worse than the Council’s common position, but we can obtain something so much better. One of the advantages of conciliation is that there would, at any rate, be more democracy than is afforded by this rotten agreement reached behind closed doors."@en1
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