Mr President, Commissioner, we know that this question, in connection with which the third and final reading is about to take place, is a major problem for humanity. What is at issue here is the vital ozone layer which is getting thinner by the day. Perhaps we notice it most in the northern hemisphere, but it nevertheless affects every living thing right across the globe. We also know how we can escape from this problem. It sounds like an easy equation, but it is unfortunately more complicated than that. There are so many interested parties involved in a question like this. What we now finally have to adopt a position on in this Chamber is a regulation which would give us tougher rules but also acceptable margins within which industry could successfully complete the changeover. I consider that we have succeeded in producing draft legislation which provides sound incentives to change and which also encourages ecological foresight. Our task has been to produce an acceptable plan for the way development should look. By means of this regulation, we want to show that we can go one up on the time-frame under the Montreal protocol, and we know that industry within the Union will manage the adjustment required, even if certain parts of industry have done their utmost to ensure that this directive should never come about. At second reading, Parliament adopted ten amendments to the Council’s common position. The Council was able to accept seven of these amendments without any problems. The remaining amendments, namely 14, 15 and 21, were not accepted, and we therefore began informal negotiations with the Council at the beginning of the year. Both the Council’s and Parliament’s intention was to reach an agreement without embarking upon the formal conciliation process, so avoiding possible delays to the regulation’s coming into effect. The first amendment concerns HCFCs in certain forms of air conditioning equipment which Parliament had proposed should be removed. These were reintroduced as a result of our negotiations, but with a stricter phasing-out date. The second concerns a total ban on HCFCs in refrigeration and air conditioning equipment which the Council was not as interested in arranging. In the negotiations, we agreed to postpone the phasing-out until 2015 by means of a review clause. I consider that this was one of the most important changes which Parliament contributed in its negotiations with the Council. The third amendment concerns an extension to certain time limits where, too, Parliament and the Council together arrived at an acceptable solution. If we now decide to approve the Conciliation Committee’s proposal, we should have hoped to have seen everything signed, sealed and delivered. There are nonetheless still three outstanding problems. At the final stage, three mistakes were discovered in the proposed wording of the Act. By mistake, the export of inhalers for asthma sufferers and of pain-relieving cancer pumps had been banned. Moreover, the text relating to certain companies’ imports of CFCs contained a wrong base year. The Commission will now be tabling supplementary proposals which, in accordance with the timetable and with a view to correcting these errors, will be dealt with during the plenary session in July. It was never the intention to ban exports of this kind or to have an out-of-date base year as the basis for companies’ import quotas. In spite of this, I should still like the Commission to comment on how these things could happen and should like to know whether the Commission considers that we are now solving the issue in the best way. I want to conclude by thanking the Commission and the Portuguese Presidency, as well as Parliament’s Conciliation Committee, for their extremely constructive cooperation. Everyone has done their utmost to come up with a sound regulation and also recognised how important it is for this to come into effect as quickly as possible. I believe we have found a compromise of benefit to all parties. It will not repair the hole in the ozone layer, but it is a step in the right direction. My hope is that, today or tomorrow, Parliament will adopt the proposal and that, by no later than October of this year, the Union will have new and better legislation governing substances that deplete the ozone layer.

Political group: PSE