If we add to this the fact that less than 20% of waste is recycled, that – in 50% of cases end-of-life materials are not recycled and end up scattered throughout the countryside and that, moreover, allowing incinerators and waste that is dangerous to the environment and to public health to proliferate is not a tenable policy, what we have is a whole waste management philosophy that needs to be re-thought, and to be re-thought along three main axes: eco-design as a priority of waste prevention policy, given that 80% of the environmental impact occurs at the time that a product is manufactured and processed; the implementation of green taxation, which is intended to have a deterrent effect and which discourages ...[+++]excess packaging and energy-guzzling products; and the closure of Europe’s 10 000 illicit rubbish dumps or the modification of these dumps to bring them into line with the 2001 EU Landfill Directive.

If we add to this the fact that less than 20% of waste is recycled, that – in 50% of cases end-of-life materials are not recycled and end up scattered throughout the countryside and that, moreover, allowing incinerators and waste that is dangerous to the environment and to public health to proliferate is not a tenable policy, what we have is a whole waste management philosophy that needs to be re-thought, and to be re-thought along three main axes: eco-design as a priority of waste prevention policy, given that 80% of the environmental impact occurs at the time that a product is manufactured and processed; the implementation of green taxation, which is intended to have a deterrent effect and which discourages ...[+++]excess packaging and energy-guzzling products; and the closure of Europe’s 10 000 illicit rubbish dumps or the modification of these dumps to bring them into line with the 2001 EU Landfill Directive.

At the same time, however, there have been cuts to the authority of the leaders of Europe themselves, who got everyone's expectations up and then capitulated unconditionally to the philosophy of austerity or, to be precise, to the philosophy of miserliness, not austerity, because austerity is when you cut the excess, when you cut the waste; but when you cut back on investments in the future and in hope, that is not called austerity, it is called miserliness.

It proposed that a few exemptions requested for either unlimited or for excessively long periods of time should be subject to proportionate time limits and it rejected one request, concerning a tax exemption for waste oils, because it would have contradicted EU environmental policy.

Let Europe therefore intervene with greater determination and take the appropriate steps to avoid the excessive amount of postponements, the deliberate hesitations and the intentional time-wasting giving rise to alarming extremist positions which – believe me, Madam President, ladies and gentlemen – will not help the Middle East question, Europe or the world as a whole.

Group No. 1 Mr. Bernier (Bonaventure Gaspé Îles-de-la-Madeleine Pabok), seconded by Mr. Godin (Châteauguay), moved Motion No. 1, That Bill C-27 be amended by adding after line 10 on page 3 the following new clause: ``1.1 The Act is amended by adding the following after section 2: 2.1 The objectives of this Act include the implementation of the Agreement, in accordance with which, in order to conserve and manage straddling fish stocks and highly migratory fish stocks, coastal States and States fishing on the high seas shall, in giving effect to their duty to cooperate in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982: (a) adopt measures to ensure long-term sustainability of straddling fish stocks and ...[+++]highly migratory fish stocks and promote the objective of their optimum utilization; (b) ensure that such measures are based on the best scientific evidence available and are designed to maintain or restore stocks at levels capable of producing maximum sustainable yield, as qualified by relevant environmental and economic factors, including the special requirements of developing States, and taking into account fishing patterns, the interdependence of stocks and any generally recommended international minimum standards, whether subregional, regional or global; (c) apply the precautionary approach in accordance with article 6 of the Agreement; (d) assess the impacts of fishing, other human activities and environmental factors on target stocks and species belonging to the same ecosystem or dependent upon or associated with the target stocks; (e) adopt, where necessary, conservation and management measures for species belonging to the same ecosystem or dependent on or associated with the target stocks, with a view to maintaining or restoring populations of such species above levels at which their reproduction may become seriously threatened; (f) minimize pollution, waste, discards, catch by lost or abandoned gear, catch of non-ta ...