Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-09-03-Speech-2-167"
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"en.20020903.6.2-167"2
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"Mr President, it has been a quiet but stirring debate. I am thinking of the eye-witness reports we have heard and also of the many expressions of sympathy and willingness to offer prompt assistance. I think it can be concluded that Parliament, the Commission and the Council are united in wanting to help the hundreds of thousands of people affected, and not only help them but help them quickly.
We are looking forward to the Commission’s presenting practical proposals. We think the Commission has acted well in this respect. The Presidency should do everything to ensure that the Council deals with the matter promptly and, judging by what I have now heard, I am certain that matters can also proceed very quickly here in Parliament. It is important to act speedily. As one MEP said, aid is twice as valuable when it is offered promptly. I am convinced that, both in the short and longer term, we can establish an effective tool for helping all the people affected. As I said in my introductory speech, the Foreign Ministers have given their support this weekend to our establishing a tool of this kind.
Our task now is one of reconstruction following the extensive damage but, as many MEPs have mentioned, we must not forget the work of prevention either, for the damage could have been less serious if we had been more far-sighted in the way in which we had dealt with European rivers.
A friend in need is a friend indeed, says an old proverb to be found in many languages. I think it important that the solidarity of which today’s debate has been an expression should also extend beyond the existing or present Member States to include the candidate countries which would, in that way, be given a signal that they too were being considered in the context of what we were working on. It is that spirit of community and solidarity with the new Member States which, later in the year too, we shall be using to carry through one of the most important decisions in the history of Europe."@en1
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