Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-11-18-Speech-4-197"
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"en.19991118.9.4-197"2
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"The first thing I want to say is how warmly I welcome this Parliament resolution. This will send a clear signal around the world about how seriously we take the Y2K issue, and it will hopefully act as an example for others to follow. Time, however, is clearly running out. That means however good intentions are now there is bound to be a risk of failures. In particular, the high level of computer interconnections between countries, particularly in the western world, makes it impossible to predict exactly what the failures might be and where they could occur. The higher the level of integration, the higher the level of unpredictability.
The situation in Eastern Europe is also far from reassuring. The lack of information coming from there worried the Commission as late as June this year, and the further east you go, the more worrying the situation gets. The safest approach is to turn off these plants at the millennium, but how does Lithuania turn off 75% of its generation capacity from Ignalia? By leaving people in the dark without water? The West must offer assistance, so I particularly welcome this resolution's call on OECD countries to provide resources for this.
I will finish very quickly with an anecdote that would be funny if were it not so serious. The US and the Russians recently set up some hotlines them so they could liaise together over Y2K problems, and in all but one of the seven hotlines they set up, they discovered Y2K problems! Nothing will be certain in the weeks ahead, we must act now to reduce the risks around the world and I welcome the contribution this resolution will make to the process."@en1
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