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Monday, 12 November 2007 - Strasbourg OJ edition

Protection of soil - Thematic Strategy for Soil Protection (debate)
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  Holger Krahmer, on behalf of the ALDE Group. – (DE) Madam President, first of all, I too should like to convey my very sincere thanks to the rapporteur, Mrs Gutiérrez-Cortines, who has expended a great deal of energy in the last few months acting as a broker between proponents and opponents of a directive and who, in the end, managed to prepare the basis of a workable compromise.

Nevertheless, I am, as I always have been, of the same opinion as the Members of this House who want to reject the Commission proposal. Let there be no mistake: our soils are the basis of our existence. Without healthy soil there is no agriculture, no natural cycle of nutrients and, in the long term, no life. We are responsible for protecting our soils from harmful effects where possible, and keeping them in good condition.

However, this Directive is not the right way to achieve this. I do not believe that the question here is whether we wish to protect our soils better or not; instead, at the European level the question as I see it is: is this within our jurisdiction or not? I believe that it is not.

Obviously, many Member States have developed their own functioning soil protection legislation, with more concern for and better solutions to local problems than would be possible with centralised regulation from Brussels. Therefore I would ask the House to support the amendments that retain operational scope for the Member States.

Apart from that, we are about to create vast amounts of new bureaucracy and expense for administrative bodies and businesses. There are amendments that would use the mere establishment of an industrial business as a reason to require detailed examinations and reports.

Let me quickly give you just one example, that of the building of industrial gas plants. These separate normal air, which is a mixture of gases, into its components –which does not harm the soil at all. We should not be worrying about things like that, but only about things where there is justified concern that they may contaminate the soil.

I believe that it is high time we refrained from the preparation and publishing of soil status reports. That is an encroachment on freedom of contract. The sale of land is covered by civil law, with good reason, and it should stay this way. Ladies and gentlemen, I hope that, in the end, we shall achieve a Directive that really does guarantee protection of the soil and does not primarily increase administrative load.

 
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