Mr President, with the outcome of the conciliation concerning the Water Framework Directive, we are completing what, for the European Parliament, has been a tough but successful piece of work lasting ten years. At the same time, however, we are, as a result, standing on the threshold of new tasks that are at least as important. Since the end of the 1980s, a range of Commission proposals had been submitted to the House, aimed at revising existing directives and made necessary by scientific and technical developments. When those of us in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy initially examined the proposals, we found that no effort had been made to coordinate their provisions or the concepts behind them. In June 1995, and at our group’s insistence, the European Parliament’s Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy held a hearing of experts on the European Union’s water policy. The experts’ statements confirmed our concerns. The Council and the Commission complied with the call for comprehensive European water protection legislation to be drawn up. The idea of the current Water Framework Directive was born at that time. In February 1996, the European Commission tabled its proposals in the form of a communication. In a very comprehensive report, our fellow Group member, Mr Florenz, has clarified the European Parliament’s aims and identified the current shortcomings. In the light of the discussions between the Commission and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, the Commission proposal of December 1996, which had been produced under great pressure of time, was supplemented in two stages in 1997. The definitive, official Commission proposal was finally ready in February 1998. By working together closely in this way, Parliament and the European Commission gradually moved towards a consensus, a process also helped by the intensive discussions during the first and second readings in the European Parliament and the conciliation procedure. I should particularly like to thank the Commissioners responsible, Mrs Bjerregaard and Mrs Wallström, and especially the Commission officials involved, for this constructive cooperation. In Parliament’s view, the result we now have before us is a great success of a kind which would still have been unthinkable two years ago. This success is reflected in the removal from the statute books of the hitherto fragmented EU legislation in the field of water protection, the coherence of the relevant water directives at EU level, the legally binding nature of the measures taken pursuant to Article 4, the shortening of the deadline for complying with the aims of the directive, the satisfactory way in which the issue of costs has been settled, also in accordance with Ireland’s wishes, the introduction of the combined approach whereby limit values and quality objectives are established with a view to reducing the levels of pollutants, significant improvements over the common position regarding the requirements for groundwater protection and, finally, the inclusion of the goal and the definition of the OSPAR Convention with no stipulations in terms of time. I should like once again to make explicitly clear in this connection the particular importance we attach to reconciling Community law and international conventions, albeit in such a way that the substance of international conventions does not automatically become legally binding in Community law. Finally, mention should be made of the guarantee that codecision will apply in connection with future procedures. Welcome as this result is, we cannot, however, rest on our laurels. The Water Framework Directive now needs to be put into effect. I should also, of course, particularly like to thank the Portuguese Presidency and, finally and most especially, the rapporteur, Mrs Lienemann. Our shared success has only been made possible by her incredible commitment and the huge amount of time and energy she put into her work. It was a pleasure for me to cooperate with a colleague in this way. My own special thanks go to you, Mrs Lienemann, and our own staff here in Parliament.

Political group: PPE-DE