Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-01-15-Speech-3-192"
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"en.20030115.11.3-192"2
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"Mr President, I wish to thank Commissioner Patten for allowing Parliament the opportunity, already at this stage of the Northern Dimension Action Plan, to be involved in this work. The aim must be that the Commission makes a greater commitment to respond to the special questions posed by the EU’s northern regions. I believe that Greece, as the country to hold the presidency, will also address this challenge, and I also hope it will be able to convince Parliament over the coming spring that this is what it is doing, because now it is not succeeding. I myself, however, have already had the opportunity to hear this assurance personally. The EU’s forthcoming Northern Dimension Action Plan must be broad in scope, to make possible political and economic dialogue and action in all sectors of society.
As Commissioner Patten has already said, very much has already been done in the area of cooperation on energy. What is more, progress has been made in projects devoted to cooperation on environmental issues. In that area, of course, cooperation has to be strengthened further. There are many challenges in the Northern Dimension region, and not least those to do with nuclear power and nuclear waste. In addition, the Gulf of Finland is vulnerable, and for this reason, progress has still to be made with the sewage treatment projects in St. Petersburg. We are, however, to have a new partnership programme for social affairs and health for part of the Northern Dimension and this must have an important place in the new Northern Dimension Action Plan. Health and social issues usually go hand in hand. Bad social conditions are responsible for poor health as well as disease, which spreads across borders, and we need vigorous cooperation in this area.
In connection with the Northern Dimension Action Plan we still have to continue to develop frontier crossing points and obtain Russia’s involvement in making it easier to cross borders at current crossing points. I now wish in particular, however, to focus the Commissioner’s attention on something he has already touched on here, which is how we might be able to get border cooperation to function more efficiently. The Commission has already begun work to develop the PHARE, TACIS and Interreg programmes of cooperation. We nevertheless need administrative reforms, one common programme to implement action in this area, and less bureaucracy and more action. I believe that these matters will be taken into account in the forthcoming action plan."@en1
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