Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-10-09-Speech-3-143"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20021009.9.3-143"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:translated text |
".
Mr President, I wish first of all to thank each of the speakers for their contributions and their questions, and for the specific concerns that have been expressed. I particularly appreciated your almost unanimous praise for the Commission, for its ability to react and to take the initiative. I do not accept these compliments for myself alone. Mrs Schreyer, who stands beside me, has worked extremely hard to create a flexibility instrument that will enable us to finance this fund and, of course, all of our staff will also have appreciated your words.
Perhaps we should discuss this issue further. Once again, we are not calling for Community competence. I also know that competence for civil protection is often not national. It is sometimes regional. But where there is a will there is a way and I think that it would be a fine and effective idea to go beyond mere coordination and one day to set up a European civil protection force.
I thank you, Mr President and I thank the rapporteurs. Thank you in advance for your vote on this issue tomorrow.
As Mrs Sudre said, for three years now, I have thought that the European Union’s response to major disasters has not been equal to the task. I am reminded of conversations I had with Mr Hatzidakis a few days after I arrived at the Commission, the day after the earthquake in the Athens area. As a French citizen, I was moved, as I was when Germany was buffeted by storms; and there were also those disasters in the Azores ... Frankly, for a long time I have thought, with regard to this issue of risk and risk control, that the European Union’s response to major disasters has not been equal to the task. We have reacted in this way this time because the disaster that has befallen Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia is on a scale that has never been seen before. Under the auspices of President Prodi, we have all learned a lesson from this. I would like once again to thank your rapporteurs, especially Mr Berend, for their cooperation and their proposals.
I heard Mr Lisi say: will EUR one billion be enough? I certainly hope so. I even hope that this billion will not be used up every year. This is already infinitely more than the small budget line that existed previously and which could only be spread very thinly. Mr Lisi, ladies and gentlemen, we shall put our best foot forward. As the years go by – and I hope we will not be seeing too many disasters – we will establish points of reference and in a few years we shall evaluate the management of this fund. I have already said that if, by the end of the year, this fund were completely used up – and I must make it clear that I mean at the very end of the year – we could use credits from the following year. Let us use this EUR one billion first, however, if we need to. We will then assess what needs to be done.
I would also like to say to Mr Ferber that in order to use this money effectively and rapidly, to benefit the communities that are expecting it – local representatives and businesses in Germany, Austria and in the two candidate countries that have been affected – we must be able to release these funds. I therefore insist on the fact that we must receive a request for intervention from the Member States and an assessment of the damage, even if the dossiers are not extensive technical ones. I said the same thing today to the Minister-Presidents of the German and Austrian Länder. We have informed the ambassadors of the countries concerned that we need assessments of the scale of the damage. To this end, we have been holding meetings with officials from the countries concerned.
Mr Ripoll i Martínez mentioned the very specific case of droughts. I have to say, Mr Ripoll i Martínez, that droughts are not intended to be the main target of this solidarity. I would also add that if periods of drought do occur, as appears likely, we do have other means in the European Union budget, under the CAP for instance, of helping and of demonstrating solidarity, in particular where farmers are concerned.
Lastly, I wish to reply to Mr Pohjamo, who asked me which countries apart from Member States of the Union could benefit from this fund. The proposal for a regulation lays down very clearly that this fund is designed for the countries of the European Union or those countries with which negotiations for accession have been opened.
I should like, if you do not mind, since I have taken an interest in this matter for a long time, to say that in addition to this fund which I hope will be operational, thanks to you and to the Council, in a few weeks at the latest, there are lessons to be learned. Prevention is always cheaper than repair and consequently, I have had two ideas which we can discuss a little further. Firstly, although the Commission is not asking to be given competence in this field, I think it would be useful to have a benchmark study of the various insurance schemes in the Member States and candidate countries. I was struck quite forcefully the other day, during my visit to Saxony-Anhalt, when I met a businessman whose company had been totally destroyed and who told me that he had no insurance cover at all. I therefore believe that we must take a look, in each of our countries, at best practice and the best schemes and perhaps exchange these best practices in the framework of intergovernmental cooperation.
My second idea concerns prevention, an issue mentioned by Mrs Guy-Quint and Mrs Schierhuber. In the proposals we are considering for the future regional and cohesion policy for the future agenda for after 2006 (proposals that I shall be making on behalf of the Commission at the end of 2003), I am determined to make prevention against natural risks and disasters a mandatory priority for the European Structural Funds in all of the Union’s regions and in all of our programmes.
Lastly, I wish to conclude, because I am going as far as possible into the lessons to be learned, by replying to Mr Stockmann and Mr Savary, that I also think we should go beyond mere coordination. We have already made progress since earlier disasters, particularly under the auspices and the authority of my colleague Margot Wallström. I think that we should move towards this fine and effective idea of a European civil protection force, that we should create a network of specialised units in our various countries, which can be linked up and mobilised in the event of disasters within Union territory or beyond, and that it should not be Belgians, French, Germans or Austrians who set out - each with much goodwill but separately - but Europeans who set out to help other Europeans – their neighbours."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples