Mr President, it is indeed a remarkable situation in which we find ourselves today. We are speaking about a second reading, which the rapporteur has prepared brilliantly, and I admire the way in which Mrs Paulsen has tried to navigate a course between Scylla and Charybdis, Scylla being the thirteen Member States that have accepted the common position, and Charybdis being the two that have not, namely Austria and Germany. Austria and Germany did not approve the common position for clear reasons. Austria has been undertaking schemes involving the composting of biomass and the use of biogases for energy production, schemes which would no longer be possible under the common position. Germany would be prevented from sterilising and reusing catering waste. When I listen to this debate today, and when I look back on the past few days, it surprises me that the United Kingdom, France and other countries accepted the common position. I have just heard Mr Goodwill saying that he and his group did not sign Compromise Amendment No 25, which I signed along with all the other compromise amendments. I signed them because they are compromises. The ideal world is different. I have a different conception of the ideal solution too. But among the sources of the compromise amendment are not only Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf’s Amendments Nos 10 and 1 but also Mr Whitehead’s amendment, which provided for a four-year transitional period. Mr Goodwill referred to fears in his country that foot and mouth disease had been caused by the use of pigswill as feed. To my knowledge, this has not been proved. Swine fever, yes, but as a cause of foot and mouth disease it is new to me. I had certainly heard this being mooted in the past, but that is only one aspect of the issue. Another point – and this is part of the compromise, Mr Goodwill – is that if I go back to my own Member State and say that there is a disposal problem with reheated cooking oil, they will tell me in Germany that this poses a dioxin problem which they refuse to contemplate. We must be very careful. This is a very fine line we are treading today, and we must avoid the mistakes of the past, when cost issues and disposal problems were often invoked to the detriment of animal health, and hence of human health too. If I say today that I can support our proposed compromise on catering waste, I must explain part of the background against which I make that statement. Nobody has been able to tell me what happens with catering waste in the other Member States. In Germany, there are modern high-performance facilities which undertake state-of-the-art sterilisation of catering waste then recycle it into animal feed. That is a fact. In other Member States no one can tell me what happens to it. Some say it is burned. Nobody really knows. No one knows the standards, and in private conversation any Member will admit that some of it ends up in landfill sites. That is precisely what we do not want. I should like to have a clear set of rules. In five years’ time, if we have legislation banning the recycling of catering waste for any purpose other than the production of biodiesel, so be it; that is what we shall do. But it must then apply to all Member States. At the moment, Germany, Austria and other countries are being penalised for their high standards. If I appeal tomorrow for us to support all the compromise amendments, I shall be doing so because they are compromises. I must then ask you to be fair and support the compromises too.

Political group: PSE