Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-12-04-Speech-4-100"
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"Madam President, Mr Piebalgs, Mr Dimas, ladies and gentlemen, firstly I would like to thank you for holding this debate, which was fundamental for those of us who are participating at the same time in the Poznań Conference and the European Environment Council, and who, next Monday, will be at the Energy Council, and then at the European Council on 11-12 December. It was important for everyone to be able to give their opinion on what is probably one of the most difficult subjects we have had to deal with, since it involves a radical change to a number of aspects of our economic and social policies, so great a factor is energy in all of this, with its moral, ethical and nature-related dimensions, this respect for nature and, obviously, climate change.
I would just like to say as an initial point, to those who cast doubt on climate change, that, in any case, the need to eventually wean ourselves off oil in itself makes this whole directive essential. Whether we do it because of climate change or in order to change the energy mix and its territorialisation, the overall package, in either case, is relevant.
The second point I should like to make, if I may, is addressed to the Commission, which has carried out extremely thorough and extremely important preliminary work. The targets proposed by the committees, and supported by the European Councils under the German Presidency, are there, are the right ones. I believe that they have everyone’s support, and this significant conceptualisation effort to express things that are so seemingly different and at times seemingly incompatible is absolutely outstanding. I believe that, from this point of view, there is broad agreement among the institutions. It is in relation to the methods that questions can be asked.
For my part, I would very much like to mention again the contract of confidence entered into with Parliament within the framework of the trialogues, and I am well aware of the difficulty of the MEPs’ relationship with the trialogues; the latter will not have escaped anyone’s notice. Nevertheless, our international commitments, our international meetings are vitally important. Copenhagen is probably the most important meeting that humanity will hold with itself. We cannot fail to show that Europe is capable of reaching an agreement on these points.
We do, of course, have various problems concerning competitiveness. Yes, Mr Watson, Mr Hoppenstedt and Mr Davies, financing of carbon capture and storage should, of course, be included, in one form or another, now or a little later. This concerns the methods, of course. Likewise, it would be irresponsible to support carbon leakage, and I believe that we have found solutions that are basically quite reasonable.
In essence what I would really like to say is that there always comes a time in life when we focus more on the method of the method than on the objective and the way to achieve it. Methods can evolve without the objective and the guarantee of achieving it allowing them to do so. There is a copyright mentality where methods are concerned; this is true of the Commission, and also of the rapporteurs of Parliament’s various committees. The only thing that is really incumbent upon us is for us to have the assessable public financial resources to achieve the objectives we have set ourselves in the short, medium and long term.
Lastly, on my final point I will scrupulously echo what was said in this crucially important Chamber. There is no denial of democracy, but a speeding-up of all the processes. I can tell you that the MEPs were working until 2 a.m. last night and again this morning, and have reached an agreement on the CO
emissions of cars. We could discuss the first three years, but we could also discuss the target, set at 95 grams, which is the key factor for the development of our industry.
We could debate how to deal with progressivity where all of our points are concerned. The only issue of importance for us is not to penalise, but to allow competitiveness and to guarantee that each of these targets will be met, as they work together and are all completely interdependent.
This, in brief, is what I wished to say, dealing with each speech point by point. Rest assured that I shall report them to today’s Council and to the Council of 11 December. In any case, please accept my sincere thanks."@en1
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