Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-11-22-Speech-1-181"
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"en.20101122.18.1-181"2
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"Madam President, I would first of all like to thank all of my colleagues who have made this first reading agreement possible – in particular, of course, all of the shadow rapporteurs, the Commission and both the Spanish and Belgian Presidencies, as well as the Environment Committee and the group staff and assistants. We managed to reach agreement following a lot of hard but constructive work, including some very difficult compromises.
To put this debate into its proper context, over 9 million tonnes of electrical and electronic equipment is sold every year in the European Union. Most of this is large household appliances and IT and telecommunication equipment. As this market continues to grow, it has also become the fastest-growing waste stream in the EU, estimated to rise to a huge 12.3 million tonnes by 2020. It is a very complex waste stream that includes several hazardous substances.
The waste hierarchy makes prevention of waste the first priority, which means substituting hazardous substances in products which prevent recycling or pose a risk to health and the environment when undergoing waste treatment. The Commission estimates that the current RoHS Directive has led to a reduction of 100 000 tonnes of certain heavy metals and two groups of brominated flame retardants from going into the waste stream and potentially entering the environment. RoHS has set a global standard, but there was a need for more clarity, so we had a great responsibility with this recast to ensure that a clearer and more ambitious law was adopted.
I believe that we have improved the current directive in a number of ways. It now has a clear methodology, with criteria for deciding on new restrictions, complementary to and independent of REACH. The scope has been extended to include all electrical and electronic equipment within eight years, unless it is specifically excluded. There will be a review for additional exclusions within three years, together with an examination of three phthalates and one brominated flame retardant identified as priority. Time-limited exemptions can be granted on the basis of clear criteria and application deadlines. Nanomaterials will be looked at specifically in future reviews of restrictions.
Given my ambitions for this report, Members will not be surprised that I am not completely satisfied with the final outcome. The RoHS Directive was designed to address the specific problems of a specific waste stream and I think that we have missed an opportunity to move it forward substantially by adding further restrictions. However, we have kept its identity and strengthened the Commission proposal in many ways.
On correlation tables, my group supports making this obligatory for Member States, but this is a horizontal issue that affects all European legislation and cannot be resolved in this one file. To help find a solution, I proposed in Amendment 105 that we adopt a declaration calling on the Commission to report on the current practice of Member States in providing correlation tables and how it affects the Commission’s work instead of insisting on mandatory correlation tables. This will give us a much clearer picture for the future debate.
In summary, we managed to strengthen a rather vague and unambitious proposal into a new RoHS which will deliver a higher level of protection for human health and the environment now and in the near future."@en1
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