Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the 1991 directive on urban waste water is intended to guarantee the construction and maintenance of sewage-treatment works in all large towns and municipalities of the European Union. Since these measures involve considerable financial expenditure, very liberal implementation deadlines were set. As my honourable colleague Mrs Sornosa Martínez has said, we must conclude today that not all Member States have made use of the time at their disposal; on the contrary, they have engaged in delaying tactics and – regrettably, in view of their failure to submit reports, we must also say quite bluntly – in obfuscation. The Belgian metropolis of Brussels, which is so keen to call itself the capital of Europe, sets an appalling example in this respect. The fine report compiled by Mrs Sornosa Martínez mercilessly exposes the inadequacies. Most Member States have not even fulfilled their reporting obligations for the first date in 1998, let alone for the second date in 2000. That is bad enough. What is far worse, however, is that the Member States’ waters continue to be polluted by untreated municipal sewage. We are addressing many demands to the Commission today. It cannot act, however, as long as it does not have the power to do so. I believe that the large number of default actions and legal proceedings instituted before the European Court of Justice proves that the Commission is doing its duty. It is unquestionably the Member States that are in the dock. As Members of Parliament, we too should take action in our own countries. The call for wider direct powers of on-the-spot scrutiny for the Commission in the Member States, enabling it to intervene in the same way that it can already intervene in the realm of agriculture, is vehemently rejected by most of the Member States. Be that as it may, if we identify such gross violations by national governments of their obligations to implement European legislation, we must also find out why this is happening. I should like to mention at least three reasons. The first is the high cost, to which the European Parliament has drawn attention time and again since the directive was first debated. It is estimated that an eleven-figure sum in euros is needed for investments alone in the 15 Member States. Current estimates also put the cost of implementing this one directive in the applicant countries at about EUR 30 billion. The second reason is that many directives require the Member States to submit reports, which considerably increases their administrative workload. I urge the Commission to examine, as a matter of urgency, whether this task cannot be simplified, perhaps by means of standardised returns. Some initial moves have already been made in this direction, of course, within this very domain of activity in connection with the various directives for the protection of water resources. The third reason is that those Member States which have transposed the directive have gone about the designation of sensitive areas in very different ways. Should the Commission not spell out the precise criteria for the designation of sensitive areas? That might perhaps make the directive easier to implement as well as having the desirable side-effect of enhanced comparability. I should be grateful if the Commissioner could respond to these points too.

Political group: PPE-DE