Mr President, we agree with the rapporteur and the Commission on the priority objectives of this programme and we agree that it is very important and that it will mark out the European Union’s environmental policy over the next ten years. These priority objectives are in the spotlight every day and the press refers to them on a daily basis: climate change, the promotion and preservation of biodiversity, the sustainable management of resources and the protection of health and the natural environment. Those are the priority objectives and it is therefore essential to take measures more energetically than has been the case up till now. Firstly, it is necessary to apply the legislation. As the rapporteur said, it is necessary to integrate environmental policies and other policies: agriculture, transport, energy. This has still not been done properly. We need more sustainable models of production and consumption. I believe that we need to change the model of production and consumption; otherwise, we will not be able to achieve the objectives marked out by both the Commission and the rapporteur. The interest in this programme is clear. It is demonstrated by the fact that we have spent hours voting on more than 350 amendments and that today, despite many amendments presented by the different draftspeople having been taken up, almost 300 amendments are still to be submitted to the House for its approval. I believe that, in the view of the Committee on Petitions – and I am referring to the specific experience of this committee – there are two fundamental issues, which the rapporteur has taken up. The first is the application of Community law. The Member States do not apply it and this is demonstrated by the fact that the European Commission has had to take several Member States to the courts for various reasons (nitrate pollution, for example). Spain is currently being prosecuted over the existence of more than seven illegal dumping sites. The first fundamental issue is therefore compliance with environmental legislation. The second is the promotion of citizen participation. We have noted in the Committee on Petitions that of the 1100 or 1200 petitions registered each year in this committee, 40% relate to the natural environment. This demonstrates that not only ecologist groups but also platforms of everyday citizens have an enormous interest in preserving the environment in which they live and that it is they who are complaining. They take care to study Community law and they make complaints to us and then have the patience to await the result of procedures which sometimes take too long. That is another problem: when a complaint or a petition is presented, there are so many delays in the responses of the governments and the procedures are so long that, sometimes, the damage is done irreversibly and, on other occasions, the citizens who complain about these irregularities lose patience. In the view of the Committee on Petitions, these are the fundamental issues: the participation of the citizens, speeding up the procedures and, above all, compliance with Community law. A few months ago we held a debate in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy on the fact that, although the environmental legislation in the European Union is extraordinary, it is not complied with. We must find a method for complying with it. We are proposing certain amendments aimed at penalising those countries which do not use the Structural Funds or the Cohesion Fund in projects for preserving the environment. This is unfortunately the only thing the governments understand. We also have to find other mechanisms to speed up the procedures so that the citizens do not lose patience. Mr President, I believe that this is an extraordinary programme. I hope that tomorrow most of the amendments presented by the rapporteur and some of the groups will be approved and I believe that what we have to achieve is for the programme to be implemented properly over the next ten years.

Political group: GUE-NGL