Jörg Leichtfried, on behalf of the S&D Group. – (DE) Madam President, I think we can describe what happened here as a lesson from which we have learnt. We Austrians are very keen skiers. For that, of course, you need ski runs. However, as we must be aware and must take into consideration, a beautiful, intact environment is also a part of skiing, and people will not go skiing where this no longer exists.

Seen in the light of this situation, Austrian policy has made many mistakes in the past. Ski runs have been added unilaterally without considering whether more runs are actually a good idea, and administrative practice and the legal situation were also characterised by this mindset. What happened here demonstrates the value added by the European Union and the European Parliament. In this case, it seems that things went wrong. In many cases when things go wrong, nothing happens. In this case, however, a petition was tabled, people reacted accordingly and Austria put its house in order. As far as I am concerned, it provides a good example of what should happen.