Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-02-12-Speech-1-076"
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"en.20070212.14.1-076"2
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"Madam President, it is nice to see you in the Chair! This directive is a very important successor to the first framework directive and it dates me because I can remember the 1975 waste framework directive going through Parliament. People were rather surprised to find Europe dealing with waste at all at that time.
I hope that we can soon make progress on this directive with the Council, but the recent history of waste directives teaches us that it is better to get it right than to rush to early adoption.
Given the likely longevity of such a measure, it is important that we get it right. We do not want a repeat, as the Commissioner has said, of what happened recently where recourse to the European Court of Justice for clarification has sometimes produced judgments that are confusing, contradictory and just plain bizarre. Legislators, not judges, should make laws.
First of all this is a directive which is very important in defining terms. The Commission has produced a number of definitions, which we have amended and added to. Many of these changes were the subject of general agreement in the committee in compromise amendments. I make no apology for believing that this plenary stage offers us the chance to fine tune these suggestions, as I and others have done. For example, in the committee we failed to find a definition of by-products, which is a vital issue. I think Parliament should have a proposal to vote on and so I have submitted an amendment for a new Article 3a defining by-products. The same sort of gap affects the issue of bio-waste.
Secondly, we have spent much time defining the waste hierarchy. This is often referred to, but until now has not been defined in any EU legal text. The committee preferred the five-stage waste hierarchy to the Commission’s rather muddled, flatter version. The problem is how to establish that the hierarchy should not be used as a rigid requirement, but should be seen as a flexible but general principle. The committee opted for life-cycle assessment and cost-benefit analyses as the essential background to any departure from the hierarchy. I believe that to be too bureaucratic, and a PPE-DE amendment proposes a more realistic, but still demanding, alternative.
Thirdly, we grappled with the issue of how one defines when waste ceases to be a waste. This gave us the opportunity to indicate through this directive which items should be given priority by the Commission, if necessary by drawing up specifications to define when they cease to be waste. We proposed seven items, but did not support a proposal that solid recovered fuel should be on the list. In the view of the committee that remains waste.
Finally, there is the question of the energy efficiency criteria, which, if met by a particular energy from a waste plant, would allow that plant to be categorised as a recovery and not a disposal operation. This seems to me an eminently sensible idea. Such a designation has environmental and commercial advantages. The criteria for designation as a recovery operation need to be high enough to be something of a gold standard, which, if adopted, would mean that anyone thinking of buying or building a new incinerator would have to meet it.
The committee adopted an amendment accepting the principle that energy from waste could qualify as recovery, but they moved the definition from the annex into Article 19. Such a move creates problems. It would mean that compliance with the formula became a permanent requirement, possibly leading to the immediate compulsory closure of all non-compliant plants, which would be an absurd development. In the light of this, the PPE-DE Group and other groups have tabled amendments to put the formula back where it belongs, in the annex.
Although this is a directive that mainly defines terms, we felt it should address the issue of waste prevention. It is no good the EU being a world leader in waste terminology if it continues to be a world leader in waste generation. I am therefore proud that, at my suggestion, Parliament’s amendments contain for the first time a proposal for an EU commitment to stabilise overall waste production by 2012 at the levels which it reached in 2008. Given that the volume of waste the EU produces is increasing every year, this is an important first step and I do hope that the Commission and Member States will support it.
I have two comments on amendments from colleagues. I note that some colleagues want EU-wide recycling targets. I think this is a mistake. Recycling is an important practice that each country has to tackle in its own way within the overall imperative of the landfill directive and its reduction targets. Apart from anything else we need to establish the carbon efficiency of recycling before we promote it as the best answer to our waste problems. I note that some Members want to restrict what can be landfilled on the basis that this is what works in their own country and that this allows them to have good recycling and low landfill figures. Well, they need to talk to their eastern European neighbours. They complain now that they are receiving huge amounts of German waste. Whatever else it means, recycling does not mean throwing your waste over the national boundary fence and hoping for the best."@en1
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