Madam President, it is very kind of the Commissioner to thank me so explicitly for this report, because it was not a project that needed a great deal of work. It is good that we have it, however: we both agree on that. We are all familiar with the history of the issue: it is now the third time that we have discussed it. The first time, things went rather wrong as a result of a few flaws in the recitals, which we then remedied. The second time, this assembly agreed on the text, and now it is back from the Council. The Council has tinkered with it an enormous amount, after the work we did on it, and it shows. We could be very unhappy about this, but I think that the Commissioner’s reasoning shows that he, like us, has a fairly pragmatic attitude towards this subject. The important thing is that, whatever happens, we now have a Framework Decision. I think that we, as Parliament, should support this pragmatic approach. Besides, the debates in this House have very often concentrated on issues other than the key issue of the report. The key issue was a very slight harmonisation of penalties, which I, being more of a mathematical bent, had originally thought insignificant, but legally it is of quite some significance. This Parliament has preferred to discuss the legalisation of soft drugs, and the Council and Coreper, too, have been very actively engaged in this. The Netherlands, in particular, has obviously obstructed this Framework Decision a great deal, because it considers protection of its coffee shops a jewel in the crown of national sovereignty. That is a significant Dutch conception whose importance – positive importance, in particular – is overestimated by some. However, the policy of the Dutch Government is now geared towards reducing this phenomenon somewhat, and, in particular, combating the local authorities that open coffee shops on the border, where customs houses now stand empty, so that Germans, Belgians and French from outside the municipality can avail themselves of this facility. Fortunately, this practice is falling into disuse, and, in fact, I think it absolutely disgraceful in principle that something like that happened in the first place and that a number of local authorities planned it. It is a good thing, therefore, that something of what Parliament had said about the scope and the sanctions remains, because the discussions in the Council have clearly revealed the same thing we had already found here: that we must concern ourselves with large-scale international trafficking; and this can now clearly be seen in the Framework Decision. Regarding penalties, too, something of the sliding scale from soft to hard drugs remains, because it is related to the severity of punishments. I had actually hoped that there would not be any amendments, but there was a single one tabled by Mrs Buitenweg. I should like to say to her that what she is aiming at in her amendment in connection with the scope – large-scale international drug trafficking on the one hand and personal consumption on the other – is already implicit in the text. Article 2(2) concerns the definition of ‘criminal act’. Our thoughts on the matter are very clear, and so are those of the Council. Article 2 concerns attempts to offer drugs to others: this includes coffee shop policy, in particular; and Article 4(2) concerns sanctions: there, too, it is very clear that large-scale international trafficking is involved. I would actually like to advise Mrs Buitenweg to withdraw her amendment, therefore, as it is much more important to be able to say, even during this plenary sitting, that everything is actually stated in there explicitly already. I think that it is a good thing, therefore, that we are now continuing work on the matter. There are a number of things missing, of course, for example a mention of aggravating circumstances, which we had included previously. Although something about this is included in the Framework Decision, it has merely legal significance and not the moral significance that we had wanted to lend it, particularly with regard to penalising the enticing of young people into using these repugnant substances. Anyway, I join the Commissioner in saying that this Framework Decision must now be adopted as a small but clear step, and it is clear that Europe is willing to deal with this.

Political group: PPE-DE