Mr President, as Mrs Jackson has so clearly illustrated, the picture which emerges from the analysis of the implementation of the three directives in question gives genuine cause for concern. Despite the fact that the measures differ quite widely, it appears that the majority of Member States have fallen a long way behind schedule in implementing them practically. And, quite apart from the technical considerations specific to each of the three directives, this is a serious situation which must lead us to reflect on the reasons behind it. I would like to highlight two aspects of the issue: on the one hand, in our countries, protection of the environment is hardly ever considered at the planning stage of the various sectorial policies but continues to be viewed as a series of actions to be carried out a posteriori in order to repair damage. On the other hand, precisely because of this retrospective approach, it is often felt that the directives are too costly to implement and that it would not serve any real purpose to do so. The error lies precisely in, when all is said and done, considering environmental investments to be an obligation which has been imposed, an additional cost which serves no purpose. But the environment is our future and we cannot rely solely on volunteers or fear of a sentence from the Court of Justice to protect it. I, too, am of the opinion that, since the Fifth Environmental Action Programme adopted a principally sectorial approach to environmental policy, it may be that, when discussing the sixth, we ought to place greater emphasis on the involvement of social and economic players such as local authorities in the achievement of the objectives, so that the safeguarding of our environment increasingly becomes an element to be integrated into the overall planning stage. In this context, it will be important, as we state in our motion for a resolution, to ensure extensive circulation of the best and worst results achieved by the Member States in the implementation of the environment directives. This could even take place via the Internet and would underline the difference in the commitment of each of the States in this matter and expose their behaviour to public opinion, which is almost always more effective than judgments of the Court of Justice. In order to facilitate the monitoring operation, but also comparison between the different situations, I feel that it is also even more important to continue to develop research on common indicators in the field of the environment. The protection of the environment crosses national borders and is a field of Community action par excellence. It is also for this reason, and even more so in the light of the now imminent enlargement to countries of Central and Eastern Europe, that we must not accept that the decisions adopted by ourselves and the 15 governments should then be disregarded. The natural world is a common legacy, and our commitment to pursuing goals must serve as an example to the candidate countries, who are in the throes of remedying often extremely serious incidents of deterioration. If this situation is to improve, each of us, as a representative of Community, national or local institutions but also simply as a citizen, must do our part.

Political group: PSE