Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-09-04-Speech-1-145"
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"en.20060904.20.1-145"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, I should like to start by expressing my solidarity with our friends in Spain, Greece, Italy and other countries who have suffered from these forest fires, and by sparing a thought, of course, for the victims, because these fires are both ecological and human tragedies.
However, there are many things that disgust me. When will we stop having to talk, each September, about the forest fires that occurred over the summer? We have been doing this for years, and nothing has changed. Parliament has already adopted provisions instituting European coordination regarding civil protection. That shows real urgency. It is slowly coming into place, but it is quite clear that things need to improve.
I am disgusted because these disasters, although they are called natural, are not natural at all. These fires are deliberate, or due to negligence, and we must condemn that. The European Union cannot and must not act in the place of the Member States: they must do everything possible to avoid land speculation. They need political courage to implement real territorial planning policies that will conserve our natural spaces and the diversity necessary for the ecological balance of the planet.
We want to emphasise prevention, in order to have less to repair. Europe’s role is to set common objectives for good forest management, with a certain degree of flexibility, because the Mediterranean forest is not the same as the Scandinavian forest and, if climate change makes one region drier, it will, unfortunately, cause floods elsewhere. It is our farmers who will suffer most, particularly in these cases.
It is true that Europe must support the pro-active policies of the Member States and fund the action taken to reach the objectives. It must also encourage forest owners to diversify species, to provide firebreaks and to maintain the undergrowth, through programmes such as Forest Focus, Life+ and so on, but the most important thing is that we must not create an umpteenth European body. Public money is not intended to finance bureaucracy, but to respond effectively to the people’s expectations."@en1
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