Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2017-04-06-Speech-4-311-000"
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"en.20170406.25.4-311-000"2
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"Mr President, in the 1600s, when Naples was experiencing its golden age, it was known as the most fertile plain in the world. In the past 20 years, however, Naples and the Campania district have had new nicknames: ‘Land of Poison’, ‘Triangle of Death’, ‘Land of Fires’. The latter, of course, refers to the region of Campania where toxic wastes have been illegally burned and buried in a systematic fashion since the late 1980s. This is environmental sabotage on a grand scale.
From 1994 to 2008 the region of Campania in south-west Italy was under a formal state of emergency declared due to the saturation of regional waste treatment facilities. There is growing evidence, including from the World Health Organisation, that the accumulation of waste, illegal and legal, urban and industrial, has contaminated soil, water and the air with a range of toxic pollutants, including dioxins. It has even emerged that the United States Navy, whose European Command is based in Naples, conducted a USD 30 million study from 2008-2011 into local air, soil and water. They found unacceptable health risks and advised their personnel accordingly. Throughout all the research, a high correlation between incidence of cancer, respiratory illnesses and genetic malformations and the presence of industrial and toxic waste landfills has been found. Reported cases include women getting breast cancer unusually early, men developing lung cancer despite never having smoked, and children born with Down’s Syndrome to comparatively young mothers. All this is very, very worrying.
Many people say that the catalyst for this catastrophe is illegal trade and that hazardous waste is a by—product of tax dodging in a country with one of the highest levels of evasion in western Europe. Businesses massaging their income had to mask the scale of their activities and that meant hiding huge amounts of hazardous waste. Yet some people’s solution to this is to blame the European Union and, above all, the Commission. There is a phrase, ‘where there is a will, there is a way’, but you could also say, ‘where there is no political will, there is undue delay’. Commissioner Vella has pointed out the efforts they have made to help. The European Court of Justice fined Italy EUR 40 million, which they paid in 2015, and again another EUR 40 million in late 2015, again EUR 20 million, and, as has been mentioned, EUR 120 000 daily.
But all the fines in the world will not solve the problem unless there is a real, genuine effort and the political will to do so. The Commission is prepared to give EUR 172 million, but it can only act within the Treaties and the powers given to it. So I think there is need for fresh thinking and here and for cooperation so that the Land of Fires can once again become the most fertile plain in the world and a great place to live."@en1
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