Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-02-20-Speech-3-411"
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"en.20080220.17.3-411"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, as Mr Ettl said, we are facing a great challenge. All our fellow citizens have now realised that the climate is a challenge. Few have realised that democracy is a challenge.
However, having said that, where is the demographic problem in Europe located? In the towns, of course, since 80% of the population is concentrated in towns. What is the issue for citizens today living in towns, and for mayors, since I know other fellow Members, MEPs like me, are also the mayors or deputy mayors of their towns?
Let me take two sets of examples. A set of economic examples on the one hand. Where towns either have to accommodate a large population or, as in certain towns in East Germany, watch many of their inhabitants leave, in the second instance this means unoccupied housing, unused roads, districts heated for no reason, empty schools and, in the first it means building a school for EUR 5 million, as I have just done in my town, or a new neighbourhood centre for EUR 7 million. These represent economic expenditure that has to be borne by the towns and by the towns’ taxpayers.
However, this is not just an economic challenge, it is also a human one because, in these neighbourhoods, when you see people who are isolated, when the whole neighbourhood is ageing, when you cannot hear the happy shouts of children playing in the street any more, that is a human relations problem. There are jobs that nobody wants, as you know. You cannot find a plumber in some small towns. We do not have enough nurses any more in my town. We do not have enough home helps any more, so people have to wait. Instead of having two hours’ help per day, we only get one. This is a serious human problem.
Commissioner, going beyond the report by my fellow Member, Mrs Castex, which I will be delighted to vote for tomorrow, I would ask you, in my capacity as chairman of the Urban Housing Intergroup, to put forward a proposal on towns for us, so a chart can be set up in the near future for each town that enables us better to understand and control the demographic situation in our towns in the medium and long term, so decisions can be taken on housing, transport, schools, etc."@en1
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