Mr President, I want to put on record the European Parliament's concern and apprehension on the subject of the Hague Conference. Firstly, as was mentioned earlier, there is the question of the participation of MEPs in the conference at all. Whatever European Union policies flow from this conference at The Hague will have to come to this Parliament for debate, amendment and agreement, that is the European policies. National policies, whatever they are, will have to go through national parliaments, but we will have a hand in agreeing whatever comes forward as a European Union policy as a consequence of The Hague. So far our promised participation in the EU delegation has been limited to three parliamentarians. At the same time the exact nature of parliamentary participation is very unclear. We would like to be able to send a bigger delegation. We realise that COREPER is going to wrestle with this next week but we look forward to hearing any news from the Commissioner on this. We would also like our representatives to be briefed before the conference. I hope we can have a full briefing from the Commissioner, we will hear about that in a moment, and to receive all necessary briefing during it. But that is not all: we need our representatives to be present at all the EU delegation meetings, including those where tactics and policy are discussed. We do not believe that in asking for this we are asking for too much. Given our involvement in the making of European Union law it is absurd for the Commission and Council to keep the negotiations to themselves. Secondly, there is the question of how far the industrialised countries, including the United States, are really sincere about COP6 and the ratification of Kyoto. Do they, and in all honesty do we, really want to go forward or are we about to witness a slamming on of the brakes? We already seem to have devastating evidence of the impact of climate change, yet, when members of the Committee on the Environment had a recent meeting with members of the United States Congress, fortunately via a video link, the impression they gained was that Congress will not agree to the ratification of Kyoto. Now, if the United States cannot agree such pro-environment measures when its economy is prospering to such a great extent, what chance will we have another time, when things may not look so good? We would welcome the Commission's views on how far the Americans are likely to sabotage The Hague Conference, and what we may salvage from the wreck. If the United States gives strong signals that it will not, ever, ratify Kyoto without the participation of the major developing countries, then what prospect is there that we could put together a coalition of countries that will ratify, and what danger is there that we would then put the European Union at an economic disadvantage? We would also like to hear from the Commission a clear timetable of its plans for climate change measures next year. I realise that this may mean lifting the veil on the 6th Environment Action Programme, but this would be an opportune moment to clarify the broad lines of what we may expect. Finally, given that we know the causes of climate change, or are fairly clear that we know the causes of climate change, future generations will hardly forgive us for being so slow to deal with it. Governments are afraid to tax fuel for fear of not being re-elected. That is human and perhaps unavoidable. But we could at least devote more resources to developing alternative, renewable energy sources, and to making them into real alternative options soon. How sad it is that last year we actually cut the European Union fund for renewables, SAVE, to which we now devote a fraction of the money spent on subsidising tobacco. Future generations will not forgive us for that, and future generations will be right. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE