Mr President, I too would like to join in the congratulations. I would like to thank Commissioner Wallström for the fact that the Commission developed this thematic strategy. I would also like to encourage her to pursue this issue because I believe that we are currently in a phase in Europe where we must consider whether the waste policy can be continued as we have done to date or if it is not the case that we have for a long time had new knowledge and must no longer just tighten up the loose screws, but rather perhaps here and there also change the system. As a result, this is the first regulation – that both the Commission and Parliament have had to address – that makes it urgently necessary that we look at the transposal of the law in force in Europe. For example, the implementation of the landfill directive is abysmal, to say the least. Some countries go over the top but some are not doing anything in this area. This is why I believe that, alongside a high level of protection, we must also pay attention here to the transposal of such things. The second thing that is very dear to me is that we ensure, in the areas of waste and recycling, that the instruments and regulations that run in parallel, such as for example REACH and IVO, as well as other product policies and the resource strategies – that we should have also included in the debate now – are compatible with this report. Otherwise, I think the legislation will not be watertight and loopholes will open up; that we really do not want. We warmly welcome the Commission’s approach, which involves developing sustainable waste management whilst giving equal value to the environmental, economic and social aspects and, therefore, to develop sustainable policies. We also believe that the entire lifecycle of resources and waste policy too must be considered together; not just a part, but the entire lifecycle must be taken into consideration. Commissioner Wallström, I must give my particular support to the approach to set up cost-benefit analyses. Without them, I believe that we would be doing Europe no favours as a location for industry. I do not want to question the sustainable combination within the waste hierarchy at all, but we must subject this waste hierarchy to a certain degree of transparency and flexibility since prevention, reuse, recycling, energy recovery and environment-friendly waste disposal are the tried and completely trusted instruments. The order is also right, but I would once again like to expressly point out the flexibility that we actually need here. The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy clearly dealt with the issues where more proposals for harmonisation must be made, and where existing regulations must actually be implemented. I am extremely pleased that there will in future also be certain rules and systems concepts for recovery facilities, so that one person does not think one thing and someone else another as regards recovery facilities. I hope that the committee and the Commission agree with me that the competitiveness of secondary raw materials as well as of primary raw materials must be guaranteed. I think that help from outside is also necessary, probably from the area of taxation, in order to develop an adequate and above all a continual flow of secondary raw materials for the manufacturing industry. The issue of the landfill directive is a difficult one and, together with environmentalists, we are looking into whether or not to bring in a landfill tax. I do not think much of this idea at all, as it makes Europe more expensive as an industrial location. I do, however, believe in ultimately raising landfill standards to a level where they can be compared. Raising taxes is basically the easiest thing to do in this sphere but achieving the required equal standards for landfill would also entail harmonising the costs. That would be a much more sensible route to take. We have, therefore, proposed standardisation and a truly ‘European’ landfill regulation and we have gained a huge majority for it. A further important point – this is hard to believe – is this issue of whether to differentiate between recovery and disposal and so on and so forth. All these things will in future be regulated under this directive and will be tracked by the Commission and by you in line with the objectives. I would like to thank all Members, who were involved in this report and I hope that we will reach a successful conclusion.

Political group: PPE-DE