Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to make it clear, before I say anything else, that I am not, today, speaking on behalf of the CDU/CSU delegation to the European Parliament. The majority of that delegation takes a different line, but I am speaking on behalf of the Group, which supports the key points of the Moreira Da Silva Report as voted in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy. I wish to express my support for the report, and my gratitude to the rapporteur for his commitment. The negotiations were not always easy to conduct – he had to agree to compromises that were difficult for his country in particular – and he therefore merits our especial appreciation. The compromises were difficult for Portugal, but they were reasonable and helpful to the matter in hand. Protecting the climate will be one of the greatest challenges in coming decades. We should at last stop depicting business and the protection of the climate as being polar opposites. The terrible floods in Germany and the countries bordering it have made it clear to us that great damage is done also in economic terms if we do not protect the climate. These floods were, of course, far from an undisputed side-effect of climate change – to what extent they were is still a matter of academic debate – but the experts do not dispute that we have to do something to avoid such catastrophes in the future. It is therefore right that the Commission should put forward proposals on this, but also true, as we in this House agree, that the Commission proposal before us has major defects, and discussion in the Committees has centred on what we do about them. One group at first tried to reject the Commission proposal as a whole, and when that failed, to at least water it down. Another group, among whom I count myself, declared that the proposal had to be improved. ‘Improve it, yes; water it down, no!’ was the guiding principle with which we set to work, and I believe that the Environment Committee's report has indeed eradicated the Commission proposal's principal weaknesses. What is most important is the acceptance of 1990 as a base year and the acknowledgement of previous achievements by businesses. In Germany, Great Britain, Finland and other countries where something has already been done, it is quite simply incomprehensible that one should be penalised for having already made a start on protecting the climate. That is what makes our introduction of the base year and the recognition of previous achievements so important, so that the firms that have done something can also be given proper credit for it, and then they will have a chance to make a profit from trading in greenhouse gas emission allowances. There are other improvements, to which Mr Lange has referred; in order that the closure of a plant and the loss of jobs may not then be credited as a climate protection measure, we have adopted an amendment to the effect that emissions certificates will be withdrawn if a production site is closed down. The Group has tabled another twelve amendments, which we have decided on unanimously in order to make further improvements to the Moreira Da Silva Report, but without affecting the heart of the compromises. The most important amendment in this area concerns how we should deal with the cement and chalk industry. It is a fact that it is more difficult to avoid emissions of CO2 in the production of chalk and cement than it is in other fields, and so this must be taken into consideration without jeopardising the overall objective. Along with the majority of the Group, I am personally opposed to any opt-out for whole countries and especially to the grant of any opt-out without prior conditions. Even in the initial stages, we cannot talk in terms of an opt-out unless there are very definite prior conditions, which must themselves be subject to immediate verification. Emissions trading is the market economy's tool for protecting the climate, and, believing as I do in the market economy, I am in favour of the Moreira Da Silva Report and ask my fellow Members of this House to vote in support of it. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE