Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-09-06-Speech-4-217"
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"en.20010906.11.4-217"2
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".
The Commission is of course well aware of the situation described in this resolution. The current drought in these countries is certainly the worst since the one caused by El Niño in 1997. For the moment, however, we believe it is going too far to compare the situation with the one that followed Hurricane Mitch. There is constant contact between the Commission and the representatives of the countries of Central America, and we believe, along with the representatives of those countries with whom we are working, that the situation is certainly extremely worrying, but that at this stage it is under control, and is unlikely to continue for very long because the rains will soon be returning to most of the areas affected by the drought.
Although the rains are due to return shortly, that should not prevent us from thinking about the real causes of these crises which, as you have all, I believe, pointed out, are due to cyclical factors but also, and above all, to structural factors, including the falling incomes from primary products, especially coffee, the probably inappropriate nature of agricultural policies, and increasingly difficult access for many rural families to production inputs, not to mention the poverty which is undoubtedly rife in all these countries.
With regard to monitoring, I should just like to say that the Commission and the Union now have a network of antennae which enables us to monitor the food situation in all the regions that are susceptible. One of these antennae is located in Central America and will enable us to be alerted instantly so that we can intervene if necessary. The heart of the problem, that is, the structural causes of the lack of food security in the region, is the real problem that we will have to face in the medium and long term, as some of you have pointed out.
One of the most important solutions, as we see it, is rural development, and this is already a priority in the Union’s action and cooperation in most of the countries concerned, and we would like to see it strengthened even more by the pooling of efforts, whether that means aid to local governments to enable them to concentrate their development policy in that area, something that we can actually do, or whether it means support for the projects of non-governmental organisations or local communities seeking to diversify production and crop distribution and to create family incomes of another kind, or whether it means coordination with other international donors, like Member States, or the Bretton Woods institutions, or, finally, whether it means putting in place programmes to reduce poverty in the countries concerned. Like you, we are convinced that we shall have to cope with short-term emergencies, but that the problem is a deep-seated one and is one of the fundamental causes that will have to be tackled if we wish to avoid a repetition of the same problem."@en1
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