Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-09-04-Speech-1-131"
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"en.20000904.9.1-131"2
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"Mr President, the rapporteur, Mr Imbeni, has done an excellent job. There is no need to repeat anything. I should like to expand on two problematic issues.
The first is a question of principle. Humanitarian aid has to be provided regardless of what has caused the catastrophes concerned and irrespective of any other political objectives. Its increasing politicisation in recent years is an unacceptable and, ultimately, also inhumane phenomenon. But at the same time, it should also be noted that the growing number of catastrophes is not only due to natural events over which we have no control. As it is, this cannot be said of wars, in which humanitarian aid has to be supplied, perhaps by ECHO. An increasing number of natural disasters are clearly linked to the fact that we are placing ever greater demands on the global ecosphere and biosphere.
The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, has reported, for example, that we can already see a, "discernible human influence on global climate". Our concepts of crisis management ought therefore, in my opinion, also to have a socio-political dimension and be integrated into development policy and, for example, economic policy strategy. Otherwise we will, in many cases, only be repairing the damage inflicted as a consequence of our own policy, and the people in the countries of the South, in particular, will suffer as a result of the disasters which we have caused.
The second problem is directly linked to the first and yet is of a very practical nature. I call on the Commission – even if the extensive problem which I have just outlined is not yet resolved – to link the design, organisation and operation of humanitarian aid more closely to development policy. The Commission has already made attempts to do this, which I feel still need to be stepped up considerably and freed of red tape. An example of this is, in my opinion, the concept of emergency relief which is geared to development, which the Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (Company for Technical Cooperation) is trying to put into practice."@en1
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