Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-09-06-Speech-2-222"
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"en.20050906.32.2-222"2
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".
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it took us nine months from the day this disaster struck to sort out the funding for reconstruction. That is no cause for rejoicing, but rather a cause for concern and a reason to take an inventory of our own options and capacities. When one considers the causes underlying this, one can certainly describe what the Council and the Member States have been getting up to as ‘kangaroo politics’ – a lot of leaping around with an empty bag.
One problem that would not go away was that, although Parliament had rightly called on the Council to do what it had promised, the Council, unfortunately, did only half of it and with a great deal of resistance. I find this highly regrettable. Having given undertakings, it then left it to Parliament to deliver on them. The debate on the technical aspects of funding was largely intended as a substitute for money. While that is ineffective, it is very much what one would expect from the conduct of many Member States, for, although 22 of them committed themselves to a programme of reconstruction, only nine of them have, according to the Commission’s website, handed over any money so far. In the same time, only three of them have come close to finishing all the things they undertook to do. I might add that the website was last updated on 20 May this year, so the Commission is in no hurry to bring its achievements in the area to people’s attention. As I am told that that is the most up-to-date information on the progress of the debate, I would like to congratulate the Council Presidency on being, according to the statistics available on that site, well ahead so far when it comes to doing what it has promised.
We have to ask ourselves what Europe’s promises of aid in the aftermath of such calamities are worth. Let me remind you also of the Iranian city of Bam, stricken by an earthquake a year before the tsunami. To date – at least according to the ‘Red Crescent’ – 17% of the aid promised from around the world has actually materialised.
We keep our word; if we cannot manage to fulfil our commitments, it is better not to make people empty promises."@en1
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