Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-07-05-Speech-3-380"
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"en.20000705.13.3-380"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Council has presented the amendment of two regulations, Regulation (EC) No 3528/86 on the protection of the Community’s forests against atmospheric pollution and Regulation (EC) No 2158/92 on the protection of the Community’s forests against fire, by means of two regulations, 307 and 308 of 1997, on the basis of Article 43 of the former Treaty.
With regard to the budget for implementation, I have a reasonable doubt: for the previous period of these regulations, the Commission proposed EUR 40 million to fight pollution, for the five years, and EUR 70 million for fire prevention. Now, for the next five years, the Commission proposes 34 million to fight pollution and 50 for fire prevention. It has just reduced the amount by 6 million for the fight against pollution and 20 million for the prevention of fires, without taking account of the rise in the cost of living index or the incorporation of new countries, Austria, Sweden and Finland, which almost double the area of forest in the Union.
Therefore, our proposal would be to increase that budget to 44 million and 77 million for pollution and fires respectively.
I would ask the President, since Mr Cunha is not present, to allow me to use his two minutes, as he told me previously.
Here we have a proposal by the Committee on Budgets. The Committee on Budgets is once again presenting amendments in which it wants no kind of notification to appear with regard to the budget for implementation. I believe that the Committee on Budgets is trying to evade the codecision procedure, and I would propose to this House, and also to the Commission, that their amendments not be taken into account...
Parliament queried the regulations with the European Court of Justice on 30 April 1997, and this was resolved on 25 April 1999. The judgement of the Court (joint cases C-164/97 and C-165/97) repealed both Regulations and stated that the Council should have used the former Article 130s, now Article 175 of the Treaty as the sole legal basis, but the effects of the repeal were suspended to enable the Council to adopt new Regulations with the same aim within a reasonable time period.
The European Commission and the Member States committed themselves, on an international level, at the Ministerial Conferences on the protection of the forests in Helsinki, in 1993, and Strasbourg, in 1990, to the continuous monitoring of the damage suffered by the forests.
Everybody is aware of the important role played by the forests in all respects, both economic as well as ecological and social, and of their role in relation to soil protection, climate, water and flora and fauna, creating balances which are essential to the development of sustainable agriculture and for the management of rural areas.
The Member States have established networks of systematic monitoring and observation posts for intensive and continuous monitoring of the forest ecosystems. These studies require long periods of implementation and their results depend, according to the improvements in the knowledge of the cause-effect relationships between the changes suffered by forest ecosystems and the factors which affect them, on carrying out this work of monitoring, prevention and study over a longer period.
With regard to fires, work is underway into their causes, prevention measures and the monitoring of the forests.
As for pollution, work is being done on the establishment of observation networks, on carrying out a periodic inventory of the damage by means of a single methodology, intensive and continuous monitoring of the forest ecosystems and the implementation, by means of pilot projects, of methods of conservation and restoration of the forests affected.
Furthermore, the Member States must carry out a periodic assessment. In the proposal approved unanimously in the Environment Committee, minor amendments are introduced which I would ask the Commission to take into account, since this would prevent us from extending the procedure.
This proposal asks that the Commission be assisted by a standing committee on forests, as it is in many other areas; that it present an analysis of the application of this regulation with regard to its ecological, economic and social aspects, as well as a cost-benefit evaluation; that an amendment be included on the Mediterranean forests as a specific ecosystem for the southern countries and because of its importance in combating desertification and erosion."@en1
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