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Verbatim report of proceedings
Tuesday, 24 October 2006 - Strasbourg OJ edition

Restrictions on the marketing and use of perfluorooctane sulfonates (debate)
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  Peter Liese (PPE-DE).(DE) Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I, too, should like to echo the previous speakers’ thanks to the rapporteur.

Ladies and gentlemen, imagine you are the mother or father of a young child, and your district health authority tells you the drinking water that you yourself have been drinking for months, even years, is no longer to be used for preparing baby foods or for your children on account of very high concentrations of PFOS. Imagine you are the mayor of a medium-sized town and have to spend several million euro in public funds – taxpayers’ and fee payers’ money – on removing the PFOS from drinking-water supplies. Then you would certainly have a major problem.

This is what happened a few weeks ago in my electoral region, South Westphalia. We have major problems with PFOS, and the cause does not lie at local level. Instead, we have found that the trail of this massive contamination leads to other Member States – probably Belgium and the Netherlands.

There is a high likelihood, therefore, of problems of the kind currently faced by parents and local-government officials in my region occurring in many other regions of Europe, too, when one looks more closely. For this reason, we must now ascertain the exact cause in this specific case and, in the event that declarations have been altered illegally, we must investigate this. We must also tackle the root of the problem, however, as the concentration is particularly high in this case. This substance has even been found in Antarctica and at the source of the Rhine, where there is no industry whatsoever.

We have to look at this very carefully. That is why I am pleased that we have managed to elaborate and improve the Commission proposal, and that we have deleted a number of unjustified derogations – such as the one for fire-fighting foams, for which there are alternatives. We have now reached a good compromise, and should support it.

 
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