Mr President, the idea that is fundamental to the report that I am bringing forward is that the proposal from the European Commission for a recommendation on this subject should be changed to become a directive and, as you will see from my report, this secured near unanimous backing in the Environment Committee. The members of the committee agreed with me that a recommendation is far too weak an instrument in this instance. I suppose a recommendation is really rather the equivalent of us all moving down into the centre of Strasbourg and attending the cathedral in order to make an act of collective prayer. That really is all that a recommendation is. There is no way in which the European Commission can go back to Member States and say that they have not complied with a recommendation because a recommendation merely says that they may do something, it does not say that they must do something. The Commission is very worried about this report because it recognises that if we persist in insisting on a directive rather than a recommendation, the whole thing may founder in the Council. I recognise the Commission's worries. I did faithfully try in the Environment Committee to get the members to agree to a recommendation rather than a directive. I got a very rude answer from them which I will not repeat to you but which is basically reflected in my report. They want a directive and not a recommendation. And, indeed, if the guidelines on environmental inspection which the Commission is so keen to see survive were incorporated in a recommendation, my committee feels that they will simply be ignored. We want to see a directive which definitely commits the Member States to introduce environmental inspections operating on broadly similar lines. I must underline that what we do not want to see, in case anybody hangs this round my neck, is a supra-national European environment inspectorate: lots of little men and women in blue uniforms with gold stars rushing round the Member States, reporting back to Brussels saying this is wrong or indeed, in the case of Germany, this is right. We do not need that kind of supra-national inspectorate. I believe, and my committee agrees with me, that the primary responsibility for enforcing European Union environment legislation should be firmly lodged where it belongs, with the Member States. We cannot understand the Commission's readiness to propose only the minimum possible. Neglect of European Union environment law forms an alarming background to this proposal. Yesterday was a historic day in the history of the European Union, not, I hasten to add only because of the visit of President Chirac to Strasbourg, but because it was the day of the first report of a fine levied by the European Court of Justice, an actual fine of EUR 20 000 a day on Greece for failure to comply with a European Union environment directive. But it is interesting to note that that case was actually launched thirteen years ago and relates to a directive which dates back even further. At the moment there are currently nine other environment cases which have come back to the Court of Justice for a second time because countries have ignored earlier judgments. There are no less than 157 cases still pending and I regret to have to say that in many cases the European Commission has not been able to act, to bring cases to the Court of Justice, because it does not know what is happening in Member States as the countries concerned have not reported back to Brussels on what they are doing about legislation. One of the reasons that they have not reported is that the countries themselves do not know. Why do they not know? Because they do not have systems of environmental inspection which form the essential raft on which the whole edifice of compliance with European environment law is built. We need the kind of directive that the Environment Committee would like to see. A recommendation will do no good. I hope that the European Commission has the courage, and I mean courage, to accept the European Parliament amendments. I hope that the European Commission has the courage to go into the conciliation process arm in arm with the Parliament against, and it will be against, the Council. I think some members of the Council are really quite wobbly in the direction of a directive rather than a recommendation. The tiny concessions so far offered by the Council lodged in the preamble to this proposal are simply not enough.

Political group: PPE-DE