Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-09-03-Speech-2-156"
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"en.20020903.6.2-156"2
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"Mr President, honourable Members, I myself am from Saxony. It pains me to even think about what has happened there and two minutes is far too little time in which to do so.
12 August marked the start of one of the worse natural disasters this country has ever known. To give you just one statistic: on 12 August, the Erzgebirge had 360 litres of rain per square metre within 24 hours. I think many a Member State would be quite happy with just a fraction of that rainfall in summer. The swollen streams and rivers carried off everything in their path. Thousands of people lost everything they owned within a few hours. Retailers and tradesmen lost not just their shops and businesses but all their stock and materials. 21 people are thought to have died in the floods.
The floodwaters have receded and what are we left with: devastation and mud. Initial estimates put the damage to infrastructure and public buildings in Saxony Free State at EUR 16.5 billion. By way of comparison, the annual budget of Saxony Free State is around EUR 15 billion. Saxony-Anhalt is complaining of damage in the region of EUR 2.1 billion, although I think that the final bill will be higher.
Emergency help is urgently needed. The federal government has already reacted and will shortly be providing EUR 10 billion for reconstruction. However, the European Union is also being called on to help. It too has already reacted and this reaction has been welcomed.
But may I point out that, even if we single out the Structural Funds and give priority to certain measures, we cannot stop there. There must be no let-up in subsequent Structural Fund support for Objective 1 areas in eastern Germany and I urge you to bear this in mind.
May I take this opportunity to thank everyone who has helped clear up and helped fight the floods. I should also like to ask the Commission not to leave the Czech Republic and Slovakia out of its emergency aid plans. They have suffered enormous damage and are perhaps not as well-equipped as Germany or Austria."@en1
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