Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-01-18-Speech-4-185"
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"en.20010118.10.4-185"2
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". – Mr President, let me reply to Mr Seguro, who talked about the situation in Honduras. I want to make it clear that as part of our decision last year, supported by this House, to increase our stake in the whole HIPC initiative – EUR 1bn, we decided to spend it globally, not just on the ACP countries. The reason for this was that, as a consequence of Hurricane Mitch, Honduras was included in the HIPC initiative. We needed to find a budget line outside European Development Fund money to make it possible for the European Union to be even-handed and support Honduras. Honduras will receive EUR 15m as debt alleviation from us because of this. This is, of course, in addition to what Honduras is receiving from the Hurricane Mitch mid- and long-term rehabilitation and reconstruction follow-up as part of the regional programme.
So the secondary impact is enormous, often because the systems are vulnerable, not functioning very well. For instance the flooding in Mozambique caused much greater damage to dams, road, bridges and so on than it would have done if the country had had normal, well-maintained, strong and more expensive infrastructure. So poverty is dangerous, and this has to be kept in mind. For this reason, we are giving more emphasis to disaster preparedness activities as part of our humanitarian assistance.
We are also considering as favourably as possible the requests for a re-orientation of resources available in Commission-supported development projects in the zones and sectors affected, including those foreseen in the framework of the post-Mitch reconstruction programme.
My view here is that we need additional resources for this. It is not acceptable to divert money from the post-Mitch reconstruction programme which has had enough problems already due to our bureaucratic difficulties, but it is an asset that we have a unit in place in the region which consists of people who are specifically engaged in these kind of reconstruction activities. Of course, this is an asset and we will definitely come back to the more long-term problems for El Salvador when we get beyond the immediate humanitarian response.
So I thank you for the very strong support here. We will come back on how to do these things.
Several Members have raised concerns about the slow delivery of the more long-term reconstruction part of the Hurricane Mitch follow-up. I can only agree with the criticism. I myself have characterised this as a real scandal. It took almost one and a half years for the Commission services to find the six to seven people to send to Managua to form the unit to run the implementation of the regional reconstruction programme of EUR 250m. This is pathetic. It is not just bureaucracy, it is a totally dysfunctional set-up of different parties who do not talk to each other. This is exactly why I am still in the market for more TNT to blow up those kind of structures which are blocking good performance in the Commission.
The situation today for the implementation of this programme is that these people have now been working in Managua since early autumn. Of the EUR 250m, we have specifically earmarked and started the execution in a number of the states covered by the reconstruction programme of more than EUR 80m. So EUR 80m out of EUR 250 are now set to work. Things are finally starting to happen on the ground.
I still want to make the very clear distinction – which I urge everyone who has spoken in this debate to note – between the immediate humanitarian short-term response to disaster and the long-term reconstruction work. They are two totally distinct types of activity and this has to be borne in mind. Nothing has moved slowly in the Hurricane Mitch follow-up, except, as I mentioned here, finding seven people to send to Managua. But this is bad enough.
Let me now turn more specifically to the terrible situation in El Salvador. Of course, the Commission fully shares the consternation and solidarity expressed in Parliament's resolution on the terrible earthquake which struck several countries of Central America, and in particular El Salvador. The Commission – President Prodi, Mr Patten and myself – immediately expressed its condolences to the families of the victims and the authorities and announced a quick and efficient Community response to this catastrophe.
As in the past, when it assisted El Salvador after the 1986 earthquake through the construction of a new hospital and provided very substantial humanitarian and reconstruction aid to the countries stuck by Hurricane Mitch, the Commission stands ready to help Central America and El Salvador to face the present dramatic challenges.
As soon as the earthquake occurred the Commission humanitarian aid office, ECHO, directed a field expert stationed in Honduras to go directly to the scene and he was there by Sunday. ECHO also arranged this Monday for a mission to be sent to make an initial assessment of the needs as regards cooperation with other donors and the local authorities. It left yesterday.
On Monday I decided that the first response in terms of money should be EUR 2 m. This would cover the things that we knew would be necessary in any case. Without any type of coordination or further studying, it was clear that drinking water, sanitation, shelter, food aid and medical supplies would be needed. We also were immediately clear as to the organisations we should ask to take care of this on behalf of the Commission, namely a couple of European NGOs and the Red Cross family. We will follow up these initial decisions with further commitments, depending on the feedback we get on what we are going to do compared to other donors and so on.
Let me add here that this terrible catastrophe once again proves that poverty as such is dangerous. Most people think that earthquakes and these types of catastrophe are much more damaging in our sophisticated societies with all the elaborate infrastructure we have, yet in El Salvador the immediate consequence has been that more than 50% of water provision to the whole nation is cut off because of damage to pipes, electricity etc."@en1
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