Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2013-05-20-Speech-1-110-000"
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"en.20130520.17.1-110-000"2
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"Mr President, whenever there is a crisis, Brussels seems to go into a power drive, seeing it as a chance to call for yet more centralisation and yet more Europe.
The Commission’s reaction to the tragedy of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was a ‘one-size-fits-all’ tick-box piece of legislation, and this would have been misguided. On top of this, many of those sitting over there amongst the Greens wanted to shut down the entire offshore oil industry. What would that have done for our energy security? And do you even care if the lights go out? The same group now wants to send Brussels officials off to the remotest parts of Russia to tell them what they can do in the far north. The EU does not own the Arctic.
I care about safety standards, and yes, I want to protect the environment too. Oil drilling is dangerous, but as part of a balanced energy policy we need it, and it needs decent, experienced oversight.
Ninety per cent of Europe’s oil and gas production comes from the North Sea: from the UK and Denmark, and Norway outside the EU. Fundamentally the Commission’s original proposals would have made the North Sea more dangerous. Furthermore, every single safety manual on every oil rig would have had to be torn up and rewritten. Lawyers would have made millions, safety standards would have gone down and prices would have gone up. In my view the cost of energy is already too high in Europe.
Through the amendments we have redrafted this law line by line. I would like to thank my staff for their work on over 300 amendments, and particularly the rapporteur for his good cooperation, taking over the work I led on the own-initiative report. Instead of a top-down regulation and a tick-box culture, we have a site-specific, country-by-country approach. As a result, the safety regime, which is considered the best practice across the world, will be exported from the North Sea to the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. This is a rare victory for common sense."@en1
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