Mr President, the environment can of course be protected in a number of ways. Here in the European Parliament, we try to do this in mainly two ways. Either we try, by means of directives and regulations, to ban or limit environmentally damaging activities; or we try, by means of directives and regulations, to encourage private individuals, companies and public authorities voluntarily to act in ways that reduce damage to the environment. I should like to say to Mr Zappalà that the time is quite simply past when purely economic criteria could be considered and that the EC Treaty now in actual fact obliges us to take account of social and environmental, as well as economic, factors. The two draft procurement directives must therefore make it possible for local authorities, county councils and state authorities to procure goods and services in such a way that there are minimal strains upon the environment. I think the Commission’s proposal is odd in as much as it makes environmentally friendly procurement of this kind impossible. In the two opinions for which I have been draftsman in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, we have clearly incorporated the opportunity for taking account of the environment in procurement. These opinions were adopted in their entirety without any changes whatsoever, meaning that there had been a very strong and clear input from the Committee on the Environment. I have also been glad to note that the majority of the amendments by the Committee on the Environment have been adopted by the committee responsible. There are nonetheless a couple of points on which the committee responsible has arrived at odd results. This is above all the case with the proposal for a directive on the coordination of procedures for the award of public supply contracts, public service contracts and public works contracts. Article 53 of this has to be changed so that it is significantly easier to take account of the environment in awarding contracts. In the second directive of the two – namely the proposal for a directive coordinating the procurement procedures of entities operating in the water, energy and transport sectors –the same change is not, however, made to Article 54, which is of course identical to Article 53 in the directive first referred to. I presume this is an oversight, but I want in any case to draw attention to this and call upon everyone to vote in favour of Amendment No 140 to the report on the award of public supply contracts, public service contracts and public works contracts. These changes are significant. The two directives ought, as I said, to tally with one another. If the wording, ‘the most economically advantageous tender for the contracting authorities’ remains in place, it means that the contracting authorities do not need to take account of the environment or of life cycles and the interests of society in a broader perspective. It is therefore very important that we should in actual fact change this wording so that it agrees with that in the proposal for a directive on the coordination of procedures for the award of public supply contracts, public service contracts and public works contracts. These criteria do in fact form part of the Sixth Environment Programme. They form part of the integrated product policy, and the rules must also of course promote, among many other things, sustainable development in accordance with the Treaty of Amsterdam. I cannot fathom the incomprehensible impairment of the existing directive by the Commission, which believes that adopting, for example, a life cycle perspective as an evaluation criterion is not permitted. However, this issue has been subject to legal proceedings . The Advocate-General has clearly come out in favour of its being my and the Committee on the Environment’s view that is correct, and not that put forward by the Commission. I am also extremely pleased about the changes made by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs because sustainable development involves having to take account of economic, social and environmental criteria. I therefore hope that we shall vote in favour of the amendments tabled by the Group of the and the Group of the .

Political group: Verts-ALE