Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-05-07-Speech-4-037"
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"en.20090507.7.4-037"2
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".
Mr President, Mr Tajani, ladies and gentlemen, it really seems as though the thousands of deaths already caused by asbestos, and the tens of thousands of people at risk of dying in the coming years due to progressive exposure to asbestos – the latency period, we know, can be up to 15 or even 20 years – count for nothing at all.
It seems as though the Eternit trial, which began in Turin concerning the events at Casale Monferrato, where there is not one family that has not suffered a loss, counts for nothing. Asbestos should have been banned operationally by the Member States applying the 1999 directive. The States should have taken every possible precaution to protect exposed workers, by applying the 2003 directive, closing factories, neutralising contaminated sites and compensating the victims and local people. This has not happened everywhere. Little or nothing has been done.
I have already mentioned the trial in Turin, where Swiss and Belgian owners are accused. Everyone knew about it, but little was done, and above all the industry shirked its responsibilities, working within the loopholes created by the inertia of the public authorities. This inertia can be seen in the events in Italy, in Brioni, where asbestos has not been removed, in Porto Marghera and in Cengio, where deaths are still occurring. Today the industry is asking the Commission to accept another exemption from the 2006 REACH regulation, already granted for a limited period, for chrysotile asbestos fibres.
It is true, low-voltage electrolysis plants do represent a limited application, and there are only a few such plants, but where industrialists claim it is impossible to use any alternative then the plants should be closed. This may be blackmail, but alternatives to this process have been found in Sweden, using asbestos-free membrane technology as replacements, at low voltage, and a similar solution has also been adopted for the production of hydrogen. Why ‘yes’ in some States and ‘no’ in others? Because in the long battle to ban PCBs there have been countless omissions and stalling techniques, supported even by the European Commission Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry. In this case, too, a good example has not been set.
The 1999 directive banning asbestos stipulated that the review of this authorisation should be preceded by an opinion from the scientific committee on toxicology, which was never produced. Is this how the Commission respects directives? Not to mention the trade unions, who say they were never even consulted.
The European Parliament is doing its bit to compensate for the failings of others. This resolution calls on the Commission to bridge, by 2009, a legislative gap on the prohibition of second-hand products containing asbestos; roof pieces, aeroplane parts and whatever else should be disposed of once and for all. Yet again, precise dates are being set for a strategy to ban all types of asbestos by 2015, but these objectives were already set in 1999. Ten years have gone by and the deaths have continued.
Among the first initiatives of this parliamentary term, the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left called for the establishment of a Community fund to compensate victims and for ad hoc funds for decontamination. This was a specific request to the Commission, which today is instead bowing to the will of the multinationals. We need to move on, however, to practical action and commitments. Only when these are in place, starting with the demands of this resolution, can we be more understanding. Today that willingness is not evident, and so we will vote against granting this exemption."@en1
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