Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is certainly late for us to be tackling the celebrated precautionary principle. I say ‘celebrated’ because it is a very fashionable subject, and you will no doubt agree with me that not a day passes without the press, at the drop of a hat, running a headline on the precautionary principle, either advisedly or ill-advisedly, but misleadingly, more often than not. Public interest in the precautionary principle is not surprising and reflects their legitimate concern, for they have become extremely sensitive to such matters as a result of recent food scandals and cases such as the contaminated blood scandal. This interest also reflects the crisis of public confidence in science, which is now recognised as not being infallible. Finally, interest in the precautionary principle reflects the crisis of public confidence in governmental and political decision makers, who are suspected of connivance with certain pressure groups, especially industrial lobbies, or simply of culpable irresponsibility. All this demonstrates the major political stakes involved in the issue of the precautionary principle and, in this connection, I welcome the Commission’s initiative, as well as the general quality of its communication on this precautionary principle. In order to explain the result I should like our Parliament to arrive at, I should like this evening quickly to underline two key aspects of this debate. The first issue raised by the report we are debating is of a legal nature. Indeed, even if it is only recently that the media have begun publicising it, the precautionary principle has not only just made its appearance on the international legal scene. A good many treaties and international agreements refer to it. The Court of Justice of the European Communities and even the WTO’s dispute settlement bodies consider that the precautionary principle is applicable in environmental or public health issues, occasionally even against the Europeans, as may be seen from the case (still pending) of cheese produced from milk straight from the cow. However, these references in international texts are not enough to specify either its nature or its legal value, especially since such texts do not include any definition of the precautionary principle. This gives rise to a degree of legal insecurity unacceptable not only to our fellow citizens but also to industrialists who no longer know what fate has in store for them. The first key task of the Commission’s communication and of Parliament’s report is therefore to specify the character and the legal value we wish to accord the precautionary principle, to define the conditions in which the precautionary principle may and must be applied and, finally, to determine the criteria to be fulfilled by the measures taken in application of the precautionary principle. The second key task in our work on the precautionary principle is of a more political nature. What the European Union has to do is to is to promote a unified conception of the precautionary principle, not only so that this principle may be a part of all policies implemented by the European Union within the scope of its jurisdiction, but also so that reference may be made to this European approach in respect of our partners who often have a less ambitious approach than ourselves where environmental and health matters are concerned. In this respect, it is important for our Parliament to express a very clear position so that the Commission may be provided with a sound mandate for defending the European Union’s positions within international bodies, particularly the WTO. We are gratified to note that the bulk of the text of the resolution, at which we have arrived after several debates within the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, coincides with the Council resolution, appended to the conclusions of the Nice Summit. The text produced by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy is the result of an ongoing search for a compromise or, rather, a balance between the maximalist and minimalist tendencies which were expressed in the course of our discussions, both of which result in excesses. The maximalists attempt to block innovation and progress, while the minimalists advise having recourse to the precautionary principle only in the case of significant environmental and health risks, that is to say above a certain threshold, although it is not really clear how to define this. Faced with these two approaches, I have endeavoured to arrive at a fair balance so that this political tool might be used within a legal framework. The European Union’s ambition is to guarantee its citizens a high level of protection where their health and the environment are concerned. That is why I invite you to support this reasoned and reasonable concept of the precautionary principle and to reject all the amendments which would depart from it in one direction or another.

Political group: PSE