Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-01-12-Speech-3-160"
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"en.20050112.9.3-160"2
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"Mr President, I too wish to begin by expressing my deep sympathy for all those who, across the world, have been affected by the Asian tsunami. What needs right now to be focused upon are the emergency efforts to relieve human suffering, take care of the injured, identify the dead, be available to the grieving, and facilitate and support the reconstruction.
As decision makers, we must also accept our long-term responsibility. The earthquake disaster in South-East Asia is, without doubt, greater than that which struck Iran last year. Our unreadiness to respond practically to disasters is as obvious now as it was then. If emergency services are to operate effectively, there has to be an international organisation whose national components have taken part in frequent joint exercises and that operates in crises caused by, for example, earthquakes, floods or terrorist attacks.
The EU should therefore have an emergency service that operates both within and outside European borders and that always sends help immediately, irrespective of whether it is Spaniards, Swedes or Somalis who have been affected. What, after all, can be more important in a form of international cooperation such as the EU than, specifically, the saving of human lives?
An EU emergency service should strengthen and supplement the Member States’ own emergency services and civil crisis management and, of course, cooperate closely with the UN. What is important is that it have a permanent structure and be given responsibility in the following areas: analysing – and making plans in response to – the need for future emergency efforts; planning and implementing common exercises; and coordinating and mobilising resources for evacuation, medical care and the transport of food, medicines, clothes and other aid materials in the crisis situation.
I would call upon the Council actually to set up such an EU emergency service. I hope that the Commission will lose no time in extending the existing responsibility for crisis management in order that still greater responsibility might be accepted in the future disasters for which I unfortunately believe we must prepare ourselves."@en1
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