Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-01-12-Speech-1-075"
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"en.20090112.14.1-075"2
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"Madam President, when the proposal from the Commission was published it prompted a headline in a major Danish newspaper. The front page of the newspaper read ‘EU threatens Danish groundwater’. In Denmark, we are very proud of the fact that we have a huge amount of clean groundwater that we can drink completely untreated. Thus, the water that comes out of the tap is groundwater and we can drink it without having to treat it first. If the Commission’s proposal were to have been implemented as it was originally presented, it would have meant that in Denmark we would have roughly doubled the number of pesticides on the market. This would very likely have also resulted in many of them seeping down into the groundwater – pesticides that we have currently declined to use because they would seep into the groundwater, with the effect that we would be unable to drink the water before it had been treated. Clearly, it would have been a disaster if the Commission’s original proposal had been adopted, and not only for Denmark. Just as we, in my home country, have the groundwater that we want to look after, and that I choose to use as an example here, there are, of course, other countries with various other environmental and health-related matters that they would like to protect and the EU must never force a country to lower its level of protection. I am therefore extremely pleased that we have succeeded – not as a result of the Commission, not as a result of the Council, but as a result of Parliament’s efforts – in ensuring a flexibility which, where there are special considerations, allows individual countries to say ‘no’ to pesticides that they do not want, as of course should be the case.
Another very positive thing that I am extremely pleased we have adopted is that we will now have a ban on, and can phase out, some of the most dangerous substances contained in pesticides. These are substances that have already been prohibited in other applications by means of the regulation, referred to as REACH, that we produced a couple of years ago. These are substances that are so dangerous that we will not permit them in textiles, we will not permit them in electronic goods, we will not permit them in toys or in all manner of other applications, but they are still permitted in pesticides, which then end up in our food! This is, of course, totally unacceptable and I am therefore extremely pleased that we will now be rid of these dangerous substances in pesticides.
A third thing that I would like to mention and that I think is extremely positive and something we can be pleased about is that we have now introduced reduction targets for the individual Member States. We have introduced action plans through which the individual countries are to achieve both a qualitative and quantitative reduction in the use of pesticides. Qualitative refers to the fact that there are clearly some substances that are more dangerous than others and we should, of course, be particularly careful with these substances, but it is also a good idea to reduce use in the quantitative sense, that is to say the overall use of pesticides, because this will obviously also result in a reduction in the use of these substances that end up in our countryside and in our food.
However, in conclusion I also have to say that there are things that could have been done much better. Neurotoxic substances, for example. These are substances that impair the development of children’s brains. The fact that we are not phasing these substances out is, in my opinion, unambitious and a shame. I also think that it is a shame that we have included the possibility of exempting these dangerous substances if industry can demonstrate the need to do this. I think that we should have been more ambitious. However, when it comes to the bottom line, I am pleased and satisfied. This is a victory for health and for the environment."@en1
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