A4-0364/96

Resolution on the communication from the Commission on the review of the Community strategy for waste management and the draft Council resolution on waste policy (COM(96)0399 - C4-0453/96)

The European Parliament,

- having regard to the Commission's communication on the review of the Community strategy for waste management and the draft Council resolution on waste policy (COM(96)0399 - C4-0453/96),

- having regard to the report of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy (A4-0364/96),

A. whereas neither the Commission communication nor the draft Council resolution reflects a clear EU strategy for reducing the quantity of waste on the territory of the Union and whereas such a strategy is urgently required,

1. Notes that the Commission communication contains no fundamentally new forward-looking proposals based on recent experience when compared with the Community strategy for waste management approved by the Council and Parliament in their resolutions in 1990 and thus fails in its objective of reviewing and expanding on the existing Community policy for waste;

2. Calls on the Commission to present an action programme on Community waste management in 1997 pursuant to Article 130s(3) of the EC Treaty setting out priority waste policy objectives and measures;

3. Calls on the Commission in future to put forward proposals containing new ideas for developing the relevant sectors of environment policy pursuant to Article 130s(3) of the EC Treaty in the form of action programmes whereafter the priority objectives and measures must be decided jointly by the Council and Parliament pursuant to Article 189b of the EC Treaty;

4. Requests the Council and the Commission to modify the draft Council resolution so that a real strategy emerges based on the principle of sustainable development, and in this connection:

(a) to draw up a proper waste strategy which is in conformity with the principle of sustainable development (the use of resources by today's generations must not jeopardize the use of resources by tomorrow's generations) and which respects the hierarchy of prevention, re-use, recycling, recovery of materials, energy recovery and final disposal, and to put forward proposals for optimum use of this hierarchy through the framing of life-cycle analyses;

(b) to remember the 1992 aims of the Fifth Environmental Action Programme for the year 2000, namely that there will be 50% recycling/reuse of paper, glass and plastics (as an EU average) and that there will be a stabilisation of waste production of 300 kg per capita per year in the year 2000 (1985 EU-average), and to propose new measures to achieve these goals;

(c) to confirm that waste for reuse or recycling is a quite specific product and that such products can only be allowed to circulate freely where the objective is the attainment of a mode of management whereby better environmental protection is achieved;

(d) to adopt measures to introduce uniform charges for environmentally manageable land-filling and environmentally safe incineration in order to counteract 'environmental dumping';

(e) to consider incineration without sufficient energy recovery as a form of final disposal;

(f) to avoid 'waste tourism';

(g) to ensure that Community legislation contains a clear definition of the concepts of 'waste' and 'product' on the basis of the European Court's relevant rulings (Zanetti and Wallonia cases);

(h) to make proposals to ensure that installations for waste management and recovery comply with stringent minimum environmental requirements so that the shipment of waste is avoided and the proximity principle is not undermined;

(i) to present a new proposal on landfilling that applies throughout the Community and outlaws co-disposal (mixed landfilling of hazardous and non-hazardous waste);

(j) to acknowledge the leading role and responsibility of regional and local authorities in waste management planning, including sorting at source, to the extent that this role is vested in them under national law, and disposal according to the proximity principle;

(k) to promote a market for the recovery of waste by putting forward proposals for the taxation of virgin raw materials and for the internalization of environmental costs in order to enforce the polluter pays principle and the principle of pollution prevention at source. Proposals should also be put forward for introducing a common minimum waste levy, a packaging levy and a levy on chlorinated solvents and heavy metals;

(l) to put forward proposals for cutting the volume of waste as well as reducing the presence of hazardous substances in waste such as chlorine, mercury, PVC, cadmium and other heavy metals;

(m) to formulate targets in the waste management plans for cutting the volume of waste in such a way that they can be assessed and adjusted every two years on the basis of their results;

(n) to promote research into waste prevention, recovery and waste management with joint financing through the fourth framework programme, pilot projects via LIFE and through the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund;

(o) within the framework of the appropriate bodies (OECD, Basle Convention), to help clarify as swiftly as possible the disputed points concerning the definitions of waste/secondary raw materials, hazardous/non- hazardous waste and recovery/disposal; these definitions must be rapidly and fully implemented in the waste legislation of the Union and the Member States;

(p) to propose an environmental liability Directive as soon as possible;

(q) to use their right of initiative to propose a ban on the dumping of waste at sea and to work for the same principle in international bodies;

(r) to demand a statement from the Member States concerning the waste management plans which they have been required to draw up and implement since 1975, on the basis of which the Commission is to draw up a report before 1998 on how far the plans meet the environment policy objectives;

(s) to put forward proposals for legislation on new priority waste streams rather than the plans to use voluntary agreements, and to come forward as soon as possible with the following Directives: used tyres, end-of- life vehicles, health care waste, electrical and electronic waste, construction and demolition waste and small quantities of hazardous waste in the domestic waste stream based on the producers' responsibility;

(t) to apply practically and uniformly the principle of shared responsibility for waste management, by virtue of which all public and private entities must have a role in waste management;

(u) to fulfil their obligation under the packaging and packaging waste Directive (94/62/EC) to come forward before the end of 1996 with a Directive for the marking of packaging, which includes mandatory reusability or recyclability, clear symbols and mandatory indication of 'recycled content';

(v) to continue their work on the contaminated land strategy and to propose a framework directive for ecological use of land;

(w) to come forward in the first half of 1997 with an incineration of non- hazardous waste Directive in order to adapt Directives 89/369/EEC and 89/429/EEC on municipal waste incineration with the same levels for dioxin emissions as in the incineration of hazardous waste Directive (94/67/EC) in order to achieve the 90% reduction of dioxin emissions in the EU by the year 2005 as required by the Fifth Action Programme;

(x) to fulfil their obligation under the Directive on incineration of hazardous waste (94/67/EC) to come forward before the end of 1996 with a Directive on aqueous discharge from hazardous waste in order to stop the loophole that dangerous substances will end up in the water system;

5. Is of the opinion that the Union's waste policy must comply with the environment policy objectives and be adopted under the codecision procedure;

6. Shares the Commission's view that much better waste statistics are needed and calls on the Member States to cooperate with the Environment Agency and Eurostat in this field;

7. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission and the national governments and parliaments.