Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are all quite familiar with the history of this framework decision. We are being consulted a second time because the framework decision, on which we first expressed our opinion two years ago, has been revised. In the meantime, however, the Commission expressed a general reservation about the framework decision, to the effect that environmental protection is covered by a large number of Community acts, most of which make provisions for administrative penalties, and that the issue should therefore be dealt with by means of a first-pillar instrument. The Commission insists that, given the environmental degradation in the Union, existing penalties are clearly inadequate. The proposal for a directive, which is the subject of Mrs Oomen-Ruijten’s report, must therefore be seen as complementing the draft framework decision. According to the Commission, a first-pillar instrument must be adopted which takes precedence over a third-pillar instrument. That means that, when an area falls within the Community sphere of responsibility, it is legally impossible for the Union to adopt common rules by means of a third-pillar instrument without encroaching on the Community’s powers. I would point out that Parliament agrees with the Commission on this point: in the sitting of 15 November 2001, with a procedure without debate, we adopted a recommendation on criminal penalties and Community acts, point 6 of which, to be precise, called upon the Council not to undertake any action concerning criminal law in the field of the environment before the proposal for a directive on the protection of the environment through criminal law had been adopted. Now then, these two documents – the framework decision and the directive – complement each other and are designed to be used together, so as to avoid inconsistency with two documents saying different things about the same subject. As you will see in the amendments, the framework decision refers precisely to the directive as regards the definitions and penalties, for we are convinced that the directive is the instrument we need, precisely because it is a Community instrument, if we are to protect the environment from destruction. I would like to draw your attention to an additional, very important consideration: whereas the directive appears to be based on the approach of preventive protection of the environment, that is protection which takes place before the environment is completely destroyed, the framework decision proposed by the Council would, in actual fact, only impose criminal sanctions once the environment has already suffered destruction or, at any rate, irreparable damage. Here, we do not, of course, have enough time available, but in committee we have already outlined this difference of approach quite clearly. I therefore stress that we must endorse both the framework decision, which has already been approved in committee, and the directive, for, as they stand, these two documents complement each other. If, however, we were to adopt a decision which was inconclusive as regards the basic approach or, worse still, if we were to adopt Amendment No 28 to Mrs Oomen-Ruijten’s report, which completely rejects the Commission’s proposal, we would cause the two documents to be totally inconsistent. We therefore need to agree on the complementary nature of these two instruments and adopt them both in their current forms.

Political group: GUE-NGL