Mr President, I should like to have begun my intervention with the title of a play by Shakespeare: ‘Much ado about nothing’, but unfortunately it would be totally unsuitable. There is much ado about a great deal. However loath I am to put things a little more into the right context, thereby perhaps disassociating myself somewhat from the President-in-Office of the Council, the point is: we are not talking about the environment here, which I am otherwise quite happy to discuss, as you well know, we are talking about health. What we are discussing today has very little to do with legislation on transport or the environment; on the contrary, we are legislating to protect people. Every scientist in the world, including the USA, has established over recent years that noise makes people ill. Noise makes people ill and therefore not only injures and stresses people themselves, it also damages the community as a whole, i.e. the national economy. That is something which many of us here wish to bear in mind, which is why we tabled this legislation. That is the only reason. That is what we wish to bear in mind, irrespective of the fact that, otherwise, we are, of course, always happy to integrate transport policy into other policy areas and environmental policy into transport. The legislation is in force, as everyone has said here today and, commendably, the Commissioner too has again made that quite clear. The last few times I have listened to you, Mrs de Palacio, I was most impressed by the very clear, very logical and very decisive manner in which you conveyed that. I welcome that and I congratulate you. The legislation is in force and I therefore wonder what the Council of transport ministers discussed yesterday. Basically, it has nothing to discuss, unless it wants to submit new legislation to us, which is obviously not the case. Mrs de Palacio said earlier that she will need Parliament’s support at some point for the second part of the regulation, the part relating to third countries, including the United States, South America and the countries of eastern Europe, i.e. all countries outside the European Union. That is the part which is due to enter into force in April 2002. But if you approach us, Mrs de Palacio, and want us to defer this part, then I think you will need to offer us more than you have at the moment, as you well know. If you go back and negotiate, then one thing must be made clear and I hope and believe that the House is relatively united on this question: it must be clear that we need a declaration of unequivocal standards. We must be clear and united on where we want to go and what the ultimate goal is. I am not haggling over six months, but I do want clear objectives and we must have a clear timetable. If – and I say this now completely off the record, insofar as I can in a minuted debate – if, rather than April 2002, it were September 2002 or even January 2003, I would be the last to make a song and a dance about it, but I do want a clear, binding timetable to be adhered to by everyone concerned, including the USA. Once we have all this, then I should like to see it go through the general assembly of the International Civil Aviation Authority, the ICAO, in September. If it goes through in September of next year, then we still have enough time to suspend the regulation. I am not prepared to consider a suspension without the conditions which I have just formulated. If that is, nonetheless, what you come to us with, then it will be possible, but it will have to go through the normal legislative procedure and then you will need Parliament’s support – even the United States of America must understand that – and then perhaps we can finish at the end of the day with another play which Shakespeare might have called “No ado about anything”!

Political group: PSE