Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-10-09-Speech-3-126"
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"en.20021009.9.3-126"2
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"Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, European solidarity is within our grasp! Now and in the future, aid can be given at once when disasters strike. It is with gratitude that I, as a MEP from Saxony-Anhalt, see with what speed and unanimity the Commission and Parliament act. I have also found, among the flood victims in my region, that the European ideal can hardly be more clearly communicated than by aid. It is perhaps auspicious that we find ourselves debating this solidarity on this historic day when the enlargement of the Community has taken on a definite shape, for the Solidarity Fund is already open to the candidate countries and our solidarity is already being extended to them.
My group's concern is to retain as far as possible the precision of Commissioner Barnier's fine proposal for a regulation. The Solidarity Fund is an instrument of aid, one that makes immediate aid possible and whose tasks must be clearly distinguished from those of the Structural Fund. I would like to highlight two amendments to the Commission draft. Firstly, I wish to follow Mr Berend in highlighting the more comprehensive definition of a disaster, which we wanted, and which will allow us to respond flexibly to future catastrophic events that would otherwise be hard to include under the Commission proposal, for example droughts or the fallout from acts of terrorism. Secondly, the extension to three months of the period in which application to the Fund must be made. This gives an appropriate response time to those candidate countries that are as yet less well equipped to deal with administration and does justice to a situation in which important parts of the administration have also been destroyed.
Although this is not relevant to the Solidarity Fund, our discussion today should make reference to the call for a future European civilian emergency force. The flood disaster has shown that, whatever the efforts made, there were significant deficiencies in the leadership of operations, in materials, logistics and communication, at any rate as regards the cross-border dimension. This needs to be remedied. The Commission should start by encouraging or supporting joint exercises by fire brigades, by the agencies for technical aid, by the rescue services and so on in border areas. In the medium term, this could give rise to a logistically unitary aid network or even a civilian solidarity corps, which could indeed be deployable in the event of disasters outside the Community, for example after an earthquake such as that which recently struck Turkey. It is a vision such as that on which we should be working, and we should not wait until after the next disaster. My thanks – for I must not forget him – to the rapporteur for his excellent cooperation!"@en1
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