Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-01-18-Speech-2-168"
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"en.20000118.6.2-168"2
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"First of all, we would like to express sympathy with all the families and communities that lost members in this terrible tragedy. It is really the loss of life that makes this particular disaster an extraordinary one by European standards.
It is regrettable that we do not have any instrument with which to give assistance in situations like this. I want to thank the Commissioner for his comprehensive statement on the subject and his suggestion that we might indeed organise ourselves at European level to give assistance to Member States and regions that have tragedies like this. That is important.
The other thing we should remember is that we did have a budget line in the past. It was very small. It was not able to do very much but it was repeatedly abused by Members of this House proposing action when the disasters were not even major. Officials and ministers from Member States were coming to Brussels, whispering with the Commission and getting a few euros and making a political point by bringing aid back to their constituencies. So there was not much sympathy for this budget line when it was abolished.
I think we should reinstate this budget line. When we had the earthquake in Greece, which was a big disaster, the Community had no instrument with which to offer its sympathy or solidarity to the Greeks. The same when the floods came in France and the same again now. These are major disasters, we should have an instrument, we do not have it. We should reinstate that instrument and we should make the rules tight so that only in situations where grave disasters occur will we call up this particular instrument. We can save it from year to year and ensure that when something major happens we have an instrument to deal with it.
We did not have it so bad in Ireland this time although we have had many serious wind storms on the Atlantic. We had floods in Ireland also and I want to express my sympathy with the people in Ireland who suffered from these."@en1
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