Lund (PSE). – (DA) Mr President, I too must thank Mr Sacconi for a really good report which, in my opinion, states very precisely the prior conditions and requirements that must be present if an environmental agreement is to become a serviceable legal instrument. I should like to say to Mrs Oomen-Ruijten that I think that voluntary agreements are important but that it is also important we be clear about which conditions must be fulfilled if the agreements are to be beneficial, in environmental terms too. On this, I completely agree with what Mr de Silva said, to the effect that the environmental agreements can only be supplementary in areas in which they can be used to bring about improvements, or added value, in the environmental sphere, and that they should not just be used to avoid environmental regulation in a particular area.

In addition, it is important that the objectives and deadlines be carefully specified in connection with the agreements and that they also be sure to cover a representative sample of the relevant businesses and production in the area in question, so that one group of businesses is not given the opportunity to freewheel.

I think that complete openness in relation to the public, to this Parliament, to the environmental organisations and to civil society is also important. There must be openness in connection with plans to enter into the environmental agreements, but also considerable scope for objecting to the use of environmental agreements in a specific area.

Finally, it is important, in connection with the agreements, that a monitoring and penalties system be established so that it can in actual fact be monitored whether the agreements, and objectives laid down in those agreements, are also being fulfilled during the periods of the agreements. In my own country, Denmark, too, we have experimented with environmental agreements in some areas, for example the PVC area, in which there was not enough in terms of provisions governing monitoring and penalties. It emerged, when the period had elapsed, that absolutely nothing had happened in terms of improving the use of PVC materials. It is therefore very important that these matters be clarified in connection with entering into environmental agreements.