Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-03-15-Speech-4-048"
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"en.20070315.4.4-048"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to thank Mr Schapira for drawing up this report, which should prepare the ground for a very positive advance in our development policies. To put it another way, with this text we shall be able, I am convinced, to actually become more effective. After all, what is the point of generous – often general – objectives and what is the point of having significant financial resources if one does not achieve effective and efficient results?
Local authorities – and this is very well explained in Mr Schapira’s report – are the operational link which, on the ground, can provide real solutions to the problems of the citizens of these countries: problems with drinking water, health, education, public transport and social problems. Among these unfortunately numerous problems, it is above all health problems that should receive our closest attention. On the ground, it is local authorities that are best placed to find solutions. Do they have the means to provide the right solutions to these various problems? Rarely, because they do not have the financial resources, or the experience, or the means for putting these solutions into effect.
Thanks to this text, we shall, I am sure, be able to provide the required financial resources and the appropriate intellectual engineering. In this respect, too, I hope that the good practice processes that we have put in place, at European level, with URBAN (Intergroup on Urban Issues and Housing), will genuinely be made available to all these local actors.
In the face of this major issue, I also believe that the growing experience that we have acquired with regard to the structural funds, and especially in cities, will be a great advantage. Furthermore, may I say, as coordinator of my group in the Committee on Regional Development, and as chairman of the Intergroup on Urban Issues and Housing, that, while 80% of the EU population lives in cities, urban demographic growth is phenomenal in all these developing countries, and only local actors will really be able to provide the right solutions that are required at local level.
These right solutions will be the result of a new form of governance: the mayors of these local authorities, in particular, will have to be both operational in terms of power – the application of their legal powers – and also operational in terms of acting as motivators for all those issues concerning waste-disposal, water, health, and so on. It is in this regard that the support that we shall be able to give them will enable them both to be operational by virtue of their legal powers and to fully assume their role as motivators.
Commissioner, along with our fellow Members and the members of the European Commission, I would like the various DGs concerned to be fully involved in making a success of this operation. Our countries expect us to act on this issue. We have the means to grant their wishes. Tangible results must be equal to their expectations."@en1
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