Landfill of waste: minimum standards

The rapporteur, Mr BOWE (PSE, UK), highlighted the dangerous gap that could well be created in the regulations in question because of the common position being adopted by the Council: if this situation were not rectified, the Member States could exclude from the scope of the directive those rural areas with a population density of fewer than 35 inhabitants per square kilometre, which was equivalent to shutting out almost half the territory of the European Union. He also noted that the legal basis for the directive had been changed by the Council; for this reason he called on the plenary to reject the proposal as amended by the Council and to prevail upon the Commission to present a more environment-friendly version. Commissioner Bjerregaard warned Parliament of the risk of creating a deadlock following the rejection of the common position. The Commission for its part was prepared to accept Amendments Nos 3, 6, 16, 18 and 20 along with Nos 7 and 22 (which were preferable to Nos 23 and 21). As regards the withdrawal of the exclusion clause for the least populated areas of the Community, it was willing to support Amendments Nos 4 and 5 (in part) before the Council.