Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-03-13-Speech-1-149"
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"en.20060313.20.1-149"2
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"Mr President, I thank the members of the European Parliament for their very constructive interventions. You have tabled a series of very important amendments which are designed to strengthen civil protection facilities at European level and which concern prevention, the need to safeguard financing for civil protection operations in third countries and effective early warning and alert systems. The Commission supports most of the proposed amendments.
I should like to file the full list with the Commission's positions on the amendments with Parliament's secretariat. I also wish to thank the rapporteur and all the honourable Members once again for their suggestions.
I should like to comment in particular on prevention. It is worth noting that its particular aspects, such as the prevention of forest fires or floods, are already covered by special Community financing instruments. The Commission wishes to avoid overlaps with existing financing instruments. Nonetheless, we recognise the need to strengthen the general aspects of prevention within the framework of civil protection and we therefore gladly include the proposed amendments in the proposed financing instrument.
However, although the Commission can accept most of the proposed amendments, there are some which cause problems and cannot be accepted as they stand.
Firstly, the Commission considers that replacing the legal basis with Article 175(1) of the Treaty is not necessary for a civil protection financing instrument. As the Treaty has no special legal basis for civil protection, Article 308 of the Treaty Establishing the European Community has always been used for this purpose. The existing civil protection financing instruments, the action programme and the Community civil protection mechanism are based on this article. In addition, the proposed legal basis refers to environmental protection and public health, whereas civil protection actions also need to cover the protection of people and property, including the cultural heritage.
As regards the integration of interventions in emergencies outside the European Union into the financing instrument, the Commission agrees with the European Parliament on the need to safeguard this type of financing action.
The Commission decided to divide the financing of internal Community actions from external actions by adopting separate legal instruments. In this way, civil protection actions adopted in the countries participating in the civil protection mechanism are covered by the rapid response financing instrument, while civil protection interventions in third countries will be financed from the instrument for stability.
In all events, in order for the instrument for stability to constitute a clear basis for the financing of actions of this type outside the European Union, express reference needs to be made in them to civil protection.
This is the issue on which the Commission's position differs from the European Parliament report. However, I should like to stress that these differences of opinion should not overshadow our common objectives, which are very, very important. We agree wholeheartedly with the European Parliament's ambition to develop a stronger European facility for civil protection interventions, both within and outside the European Union, and the need for increased financing. On this point, I should really like to thank you for your support.
I would, however, emphasise that, with the existing instruments, with the existing facilities and with the existing competences, civil protection and the mechanism which we have in the European Commission responded very, very well to last year's crises, by which I mean the various fires, for example in Portugal, and the floods in countries such as Bulgaria and Romania. We had thirteen such interventions and, of course, the two very big crises in South-East Asia with the tsunami, where the European Union was, through the civil protection mechanism, the first to send representatives to the area. Also, the European Union responded to the destruction caused by hurricane Katrina by providing the assistance which it had proposed three days earlier to the competent authorities in the United States, which is why, of course, we also had the relevant favourable mention from the European Council. It is no bad thing for us also to remember and emphasise certain things which happen under – I would stress – the existing facilities. Of course, we need, as Mr Papadimoulis's report says, to strengthen civil protection."@en1
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