Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-05-09-Speech-3-172"
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"en.20070509.17.3-172"2
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".
Madam President, Mr Verheugen, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection recommends that you adopt the Council common position, modified by some amendments: an amendment comprising a safeguard clause at the end of the transitional periods, a provision encouraging the extension of unit pricing, a system for guaranteeing that British bread can continue to be marketed in its current sizes and, finally, a declaration by the Commission that can explain and guarantee exactly the phasing out of stocks of bottles that are off-specification. However, the heart of this directive is, on the one hand, freedom in sizing and, on the other, mandatory sizes, for five years, for milk, pasta, butter and coffee and, for six years, for white sugar. That is what is proposed to you.
How have we reached this point? At first reading, on the basis of its own study, the European Parliament retained mandatory sizes for a number of products, in permanent derogation in relation to the general liberalisation of sizes that was proposed by the Commission. The latter, in a position of principle, set out a revised proposal that was totally opposed to Parliament’s text. It was then that I was able to resume talks with the Commission and the Finnish Presidency of the Council. The latter succeeded in achieving the adoption of a common position that took up some of the derogations requested by the European Parliament, but only for a limited period, a transitional period.
I proposed accepting the main points of this position, provided that it was accompanied by two additional guarantees. Firstly, that the Commission can propose continuing to keep certain mandatory sizes for certain mass-marketed products if consumers experienced disruption at the end of the transitional period and, secondly, that the Member States should be encouraged to extend unit pricing to local shops. That is what the Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection decided on on the basis of my proposal and it is also what we agreed with the Council and the Commission at the end of two trialogues held over recent weeks.
Furthermore, ladies and gentlemen, I shall draw three lessons from this legislative procedure. Firstly, on this occasion, we have, for the first time, carried out an impact assessment. We commissioned this assessment from an independent body, and it was the first time that Parliament had used this procedure, which has, I believe, a great future. Secondly, what we are doing means that better lawmaking does not necessarily consist in doing away with all legislation because - and this is the third lesson I have drawn - through this debate, we have strictly taken into account the needs of consumers, and, in particular, the most vulnerable consumers.
That is why, ladies and gentlemen, I propose that our Parliament vote tomorrow for the three amendments that have been adopted by the Commission on Internal Market and Consumer Protection."@en1
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