Mr President, Commissioner, Parliament’s objective with respect to this directive was to achieve the strictest possible ceilings for air emissions responsible for acidification. Acidification, ground-level ozone, and soil eutrophication are interconnected problems caused by emissions of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, volatile organic compounds and ammonia. It seems only reasonable to examine these problems together, as in that way we could succeed in reducing emissions in the most cost-effective way. On this basis, the Commission in its proposal had calculated for each Member State the ceilings they should achieve by the year 2010. In both the fifth environmental action programme and its acidification strategy, the Community – the European Union – laid down its objective to guarantee that people would be protected from all known air pollutants. The Commission stated in its proposal that at this stage it was unable to set ‘final targets’ for critical loads and levels: to achieve a final, long-term objective it was necessary to proceed via some interim target values, which the Commission set for 2001. Except with regard to ammonia, Parliament approved the Commission’s targets in its second reading, with the addition of a long-term objective. In Parliament’s view, the interim target values should be achieved by 2010, and the final objective, whereby people would be protected throughout the EU from all known atmospheric pollutants, should be achieved by 2020. By the time it had reached the conciliation stage all positions were clear, and the Council clearly gave us to understand that it was unable to alter the figures, which it had approved within the framework of a common position. Neither was it prepared to approve the long-term objective on the grounds that the demand that critical levels and loads should not be exceeded in any area was not, in the opinion of the Council and the Commission too, technically feasible. The Council’s common position on emission ceilings was a long way from the Commission’s figures relatively speaking, but, nevertheless, better than the ‘Gothenburg’ values that most of the Member States had sworn by. Approval of the Council’s common position would have meant that we would have been raising our hands in favour of improving air quality and protecting the health of our citizens. At the conciliation stage, after some considerable amount of arm wrestling, with the Commission busy producing compromises, the main principles of the directive were pulled in the direction of Parliament’s views. During conciliation the Commission’s and Parliament’s stricter emission limits were approved as indicative values and the Council’s common position was recognised as binding on Member States. Indicativeness means the Commission is obliged to reappraise the directive in its reports for 2004 and 2008, taking account of future scientific and technological developments and hence the possibility of achieving stricter emission limits. With these investigations it must also be considered to what extent the long-term objectives can be achieved by 2020. The result of conciliation was thus to give the Commission the tools to make the directive’s target levels stricter and require it to study reductions in emissions in the long-term also, the aim being that critical levels and loads are not exceeded and that people really are protected effectively from all atmospheric pollutants. It was quite an achievement to have this long-term objective included in an Article of the directive, but it was perhaps the most important accomplishment during conciliation. The emission sources causing acidification that are the hardest to deal with are emissions from aircraft and ships. We have made progress in this area too, and the Commission is being asked to propose measures to deal with this problem. I would also like to thank Ria Oomen-Ruijten for her excellent show of co-operation during conciliation. It was really most significant that the directive on large combustion plants was dealt with so successfully, as it will be a key instrument in helping to carry through this directive on emissions ceilings. I also want to thank the President of Parliament’s delegation, the Members, the representatives of the Commission and Sweden, as the country holding the presidency at the time, for their excellent show of co-operation.

Political group: PSE