Richard Seeber (PPE-DE). – (DE) Madam President, this is a balanced compromise and therefore I will support it. I would also like to say thank you, at this point, to all those involved. The dossier was, as we are hearing in this debate, created with a great deal of emotion, but nevertheless it succeeded in reconciling the different protection aims which we are pursuing with this legislation.

Europe purports to be one of the most advanced plant protection legislative powers worldwide and that is a great plus. It was important for us to find a balance between the protection aims in question and health protection, the internal market goals and, of course, environmental protection, but a balanced result between the specific protection aims has also been achieved. It was important for us to observe the various principles, for example, that the whole thing was based on facts and scientific principles and not on emotions, secondly, that we stayed with the risk-based approach and not the hazard-based approach as before. This is extremely important for the practicability of the whole legislative project and for its implementation at a later date.

At the same time, it should be remembered that we do not give preferential treatment to imports in the implementation and disadvantage national or European production. But in this instance the Commission still has a great task ahead of it. These principles were taken into consideration in a balanced manner, overall. Therefore, we can live with the compromise. As far as the details are concerned, it is particularly important for me that Member States are given the necessary flexibility and subsidiarity for groundwater protection, so that they are in a position to be able to respond to their specific circumstances. The Netherlands cannot be compared with Germany or with Malta or Greece in this instance. It is also important that the use of pesticides in Natura 2000 areas and in bird sanctuaries is reduced to a minimum. Member States will have sufficient room to manoeuvre to implement this accordingly. However, this is a compromise which should be supported by everybody.