Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-02-12-Speech-1-121"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20070212.14.1-121"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am grateful to Mrs Jackson and to Mr Blokland for the good work they have done. Waste – of which the 27 EU Member States produce 1.3 billion tonnes per annum – is a core issue rather than a marginal one.
As I see it, it is easy to define the goals but difficult to achieve them. Preventing waste must be first on the list, and, if the amount of waste generated is to remain stable until 2012 and decrease thereafter, a number of steps will have to be taken, among them an eco-design product directive, more responsibility on the part of manufacturers, the traceability of hazardous substances and a properly thought-out recycling system. It is more important to recycle waste than to reprocess it, just as in medicine, it is more important to rehabilitate people than to give them a disability pension. These things hang together perfectly.
No quarter is being given in the arguments about this. In my own country, the municipal service-providers’ association has over EUR 60 billion in turnover and precious little love of open competition, of which I take a positive view, seeing it as benefiting both customers and the environment. We need only to lay down the ground rules for this competition, not the details of it. It is the portability of waste that needs to be regulated by reference to the materials and the risks involved, not the issue of who should transport it.
My thinking on this subject revolves round the future tasks of recycling and product design, for it is here that I see Europe having the chance of building a future on technology and the protection of the environment.
I am all in favour of an open internal market of the kind on which we in the Committee on the Environment have agreed; it is absurd to believe that more and more new and restrictive measures will get Europe any further along the path mapped out by the Lisbon Strategy. I also believe that municipal service providers stand a good chance when they compete in a growing market."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples