Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-06-19-Speech-2-429"
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"en.20070619.47.2-429"2
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".
Mr President, I am pleased to open this debate on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and the Council on the banning of exports and the safe storage of metallic mercury. I should like to thank the draftsman and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety for their efforts so far. I should also like to thank the Committee on International Trade and its rapporteur, Mr Holm, for their contribution to this file.
The Commission aimed at proposing a straightforward, simple legislative proposal that is backed by a sound knowledge base and avoids, in line with the principles of better regulation, any excessive administrative burden for industry or for public administration.
The proposal refrains from taking legislative action in fields where the impact assessment did not provide any solid justification for such action or any clear view on its possible impact.
I should also like to underline that the industry concerned, namely the chlor-alkali sector, signalled its support for this proposal and is willing to sign up to a voluntary commitment. This commitment engages industry to select highly qualified storage operators and ensures that key data on mercury flows will be made available.
The Commission intends to acknowledge this commitment, in line with the principles and procedures set out in the communication on the environmental agreements adopted in 2002.
It is not the purpose of the proposal to implement the whole of the mercury strategy: its scope is deliberately more concise. Work on other actions of the strategy is ongoing.
Mercury is internationally recognised as highly toxic to humans, ecosystems and wildlife. Initially seen as an acute local problem, mercury pollution is now also understood to be global, diffuse and chronic. High doses can be fatal to humans and even relatively low doses can have serious adverse neuro-developmental impacts.
Against this background, the Commission developed a comprehensive Community strategy concerning mercury, which was adopted in January 2005. Its key aim is to reduce mercury levels in the environment and human exposure through a number of actions that address all aspects of the mercury lifecycle. The European Parliament welcomed the strategy and its overall approach in the resolution adopted in March 2006.
The proposal that is now before you implements two key actions identified in the strategy, namely Action 5 (by banning the export of metallic mercury from the Community) and Action 9 (by requiring the safe storage of mercury that is no longer needed in the chlor-alkali industry).
The primary production of mercury came to an end within the Community four years ago when the last active mine in Almadén in Spain stopped its activities. The environmentally desirable phasing-out of mercury-cell technology into chlor-alkali industry results, however, in a new source of mercury supplies: some 12 000 tonnes of surplus mercury will come out of the sector over the next number of years until its transition to mercury-free technologies is completed.
Most mercury is currently exported from the Community, and exports of up to 800 tonnes per year end up, at least partly, in unregulated and uncontrolled uses like artisanal gold mining. This is how EU mercury is adding to global mercury exposure.
The basic aim of the proposed regulation is to stop these exports and to ensure that mercury no longer used in the chlor-alkali industry is safely stored and cannot re-enter the environment.
On the basis of the impact assessment, the Commission also proposes to apply the safe storage requirement to two other industrial sources of mercury – natural gas cleaning and mercury resulting as a byproduct of non-ferrous metal mining.
The storage obligation is a logical development from the export ban, as the small remaining internal market for mercury will be unable to absorb the quantities at stake. Recycling and recovery will ensure that mercury is still available for remaining legitimate uses. Storage operations will fall under the legal framework of the Waste Landfill Directive, with additional safety requirements reflecting the specific properties of metallic mercury."@en1
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