Mr President, I would like to ask what purpose the enhanced Hughes procedure serves. Since this report comes under the enhanced Hughes procedure, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy and the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism should normally have drawn up opinions according to the same procedure. This is not the issue we are here to discuss, however. It will be decided during another debate. As draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on the Environment, I can say that rarely has society witnessed such a heated, intense debate as the debate on the Prestige. Ultimately, here, we are somewhat removed from the disaster. The effect of the Prestige disaster on Galicia really was similar to that of an electric shock, and it had the same impact on France and Europe as a whole. Nobody, no citizen, failed to be moved by the disaster, especially after the Erika disaster in 1999, when we in this Chamber said ‘Never again’. Mr President, Commissioner, we must answer some questions to which a response has not yet been given. For instance, we know how it happened but we do not know why it happened. We do not know why the Prestige was towed out to sea, and the citizens asking this question have the right to know the answer. Parliament and the Commission, however, reacted very quickly. We called for a committee of inquiry to be set up, a proposal which was rejected by the majority of the House, and so we have a report instead, with this enhanced Hughes procedure which, I regret to say, seems not to serve much purpose. Nevertheless, very thorough work has been carried out, with a high level of cooperation between the different contributors and the different Members. On behalf of the Committee on the Environment, I myself, generally alongside the rapporteur, have taken part in all the initiatives which have produced this report, which is relatively exhaustive, the Committee on the Environment having focused on the issue specifically from the point of view of the environment. I will therefore concentrate on four points, four of the Committee on the Environment’s demands: The first concerns the priority of recovering the fuel oil. It is unthinkable that we should let 13 000 tonnes of fuel oil seep out drop by drop: that would be to turn a blind eye to a hidden oil slick which would continue to pollute our coasts for years to come. The second point is the rehabilitation of areas of unspoiled nature. We call for the enforcement of the Habitats Directive and for the proposed Natura 2000 sites to be adopted immediately, and for resources to rehabilitate areas of unspoiled nature, the coasts, the seascape and marine life. The issue of volunteers, Mr President, is also extremely important. We call for an epidemiological study to be carried out on the communities to find out whether volunteers should, indeed, continue to collect fuel oil or not in the event of a problem, etc. I will not go through the entire list of points, however. Ladies and gentlemen, I would like, in particular, to draw your attention to tomorrow’s vote. With regard to tomorrow’s vote, it is not a question of opting for the wrong committee of inquiry: we are calling for a temporary committee that will discover the whole truth and tell us what should and should not be done in the event of a disaster. It is a genuine decision-making aid, a tool to help decision-makers that we are calling for with the temporary committee. A committee on the enforcement of the Erika I and Erika II directives would not be able to tell us these things or bring progress.

Political group: Verts-ALE