Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-12-12-Speech-2-421"
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"en.20061212.47.2-421"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there are three issues I would like to address. The first is that of large off-road vehicles. In response to a question put earlier, I can state that I, personally, do not own a car. I get around on foot or by train. I was a little taken aback when Mr Belet criticised the Commission for having made an exception for large and expensive off-road vehicles.
I am sorry, but it was the Commission that proposed that no exception should be made, and Parliament that insisted on an exception for vehicles of this nature. Let us not get carried away here. Let us all show understanding and let us all try to follow the arguments. However, I really cannot follow what Mr Krahmer means if he is saying, basically, that if someone has enough money to buy a particularly large and expensive car they also acquire the right, at the same time, to cause more pollution. With the best will in the world, I cannot share this view.
The problem, put simply, is that, as Mr Groote is quite right to point out, what we are dealing with here is a compromise as part of a complete package. I am sure that you have noticed that the Commission is very unhappy indeed with one element of this compromise. However, this does not in any way change the fact that we are urging you all to vote in favour of this package compromise and not to table any amendments of the type described because, otherwise, the entire package will, in fact, collapse and it will no longer be at all possible to tell when we will ever reach a solution to this issue. Sometimes, you just have to bite the bullet, or swallow the toad, as we say in German.
Allow me, by way of conclusion, just to say something in response to an argument that a number of speakers have used today. This relates to the age of the cars on Europe’s roads and what impact these regulations will actually have. This is a very serious issue. In reality, of course, most vehicles on our roads are not equipped to meet the most up-to-date regulations on exhaust gases.
In reality, only 8% of the cars on Europe’s roads are replaced each year, so that it will take over 10 years for all of the cars on the roads to be replaced. Thus, for example, it will probably be 2015 or 2016 before Euro 4 applies to all the vehicles on Europe’s roads. These are the actual realities and it would indeed be a very welcome achievement if we were to be able to convince consumers to get hold of more environmentally friendly cars more quickly. If that, though, is to happen, such cars must remain affordable. We have no way of bringing such a situation about, and it is for this reason that I believe, in the final analysis, that the proposal before us, which I recommend you to adopt, is clearly the best achievable."@en1
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