Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-04-11-Speech-4-154"
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"en.20020411.8.4-154"2
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"Mr President, the situation around the entrance to the Channel Tunnel has been chaotic for months. Since last November, rail-freight services at Fréthun, near Calais, have been severely disrupted by the illegal activities of migrants. I have already raised this matter on two occasions on the floor of this House, on 4 February and 11 March, and our urgency resolution reflects the desperate seriousness of the continuing crisis.
On 19 March, the French government replied to initial queries from the European Commission, stating that immediate steps had been taken to carry out new security work at Fréthun and to provide 24-hour police coverage. However, on 27 March, along with some 150 parliamentarians, rail-freight operators, officials, police, media and others, but with the noticeable absence of any British or French government ministers, I visited the rail-freight terminal at Fréthun. We were amazed to see illegal migrants clambering all over trains in broad daylight before our very eyes. The situation was clearly out of hand and it has got no better, in spite of undertakings by SNCF to achieve a normal service from 2 April.
Only this last Tuesday, some 100 migrants broke out of a freight train at Dollands Moor in Folkestone. This train had apparently waited virtually unguarded at Calais for 24 hours. This situation is unacceptable. Besides the human tragedy in the situation, I am concerned that British businesses and some 8 000 jobs are directly at risk, as a result of the state of affairs, including in my own area of the East of England. There are also very serious environmental and other consequences. It makes a mockery of the idea of the free movement of goods across the European Union.
Given the lack of action by the British and French governments on Tuesday, I took a deputation to meet the European Commission: Lord Berkeley, Chairman of the Rail Freight Group and Mr Alan Roberts, a constituent of mine from Hertfordshire, whose family rail-freight organising business has been very hard hit by the crisis at Fréthun, went with me to see Commissioner Bolkestein. He was very sympathetic and expressed frustration at the lack of government action. I now implore the Commission to take the necessary further action, including legal action against the French government, as a matter of urgency.
Businesses require urgent financial assistance in order to be able to continue trading, as well as compensation in the longer term for the losses that they have sustained because of the lack of effective action by the French and the British authorities."@en1
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