Mr. Nicolas Schmit:

This does not depend on us, it depends on the Council. Therefore, it is important that we get a qualified majority in the Council. It also depends on the Parliament. Both institutions have started their deliberations. I am optimistic and I hope that we can have this, perhaps, by the end of this year. That would be very good because it is quite a short amount of time for a difficult proposal. It will then take time until the member states have transposed this directive, as it is not directly applicable.