Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-09-14-Speech-1-141"
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"en.20090914.25.1-141"2
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Madam President, I should like first of all to express my support for those who were affected by the recent forest fires.
I consider that there is now an urgent need to create an independent capacity to deal with natural disasters at Community level. We hope that this pilot programme will form the core of a future European rapid response force to fight forest fires and other natural or man-made disasters.
Of course, there are certain differing points of view here on the question of forest fires, with some people citing the principle of subsidiarity in the forest resource management and protection sector. However, there are also reservations about handing over more power to the Commission in the civil protection sector. Also, there are arguments that the existence of a European fire-fighting force would give a false sense of security to many national authorities, which might neglect the necessary investment required in human resources, in fire-fighting resources and, more importantly, in the prevention of fires and other natural disasters.
Apart from these reactions, there are a number of practical problems, problems of coordination, especially on the question of forest fires. For example, what criteria and what priorities will be used to determine how European airborne fire-fighting units are to be used where fires break out in several countries at once, for example, in Portugal and Greece at the same time.
In any event, all these issues will be analysed in a report submitted by the European Commission for debate by the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament on the operation of the pilot programme this summer.
The Council, the European Parliament and the Commission will all need to be persuaded and to cooperate in the creation of this mechanism. Of course, in the meantime, Member States must not neglect in any way whatsoever their obligations in the information, education and prevention sectors.
I shall say a few more words about the Community Mechanism for Civil Protection, which was set up in 2001, and which made few interventions in the initial years. Since 2005, interventions both inside and outside the European Union, with approximately 50% inside the European Union and 50% outside it, have increased fivefold and we have seriously improved coordination and the assistance which we provide via the Community Mechanism for Civil Protection.
Everyone knows how important intervention was both in the case of the tsunami and during hurricane Katrina. In fact, we were the first to send specialists to the disaster zones in both these cases. However, as I said earlier, we have a great deal to do and anyone who reads the Barnier report will see how much we can advance civil protection for the benefit of European citizens and, of course, environmental protection.
This summer, the Community made an important contribution towards putting out the many difficult forest fires which broke out in various Member States. The pilot programme of the EU forest fire tactical reserve played an important role and provided assistance to the Member States affected by the forest fires.
I should like to extend my special thanks to the European Parliament for approving funding for this pilot programme. I must also say that this pilot programme is a small part, a partial implementation of proposals and ideas from the report by Michel Barnier, to whom I also express my thanks.
This pilot programme substantially reinforced the Community Mechanism for Civil Protection and, by extension, the facility to assist countries hit by natural disasters.
The European Community Mechanism for Civil Protection was used by France, Italy, Spain and other Member States of the European Union to provide aerial fire-fighting resources in Greece, Italy, Portugal and other countries. In fact, for the first time, two Community fire-fighting aircraft were involved together with Greek, Portuguese and French aerial resources in fire-fighting efforts under a pilot programme to create an independent Community fire brigade.
On the occasion of these recent fires, many voices were again raised by politicians, scientists, journalists and simple citizens, calling for the creation at European level of a specialist fire-fighting force able to intervene directly and effectively when national fire-fighting resources are insufficient.
Huge efforts have been made in this direction to create an independent intervention force to fight forest fires and, as I said, the support of the European Parliament was a decisive factor. It allowed us to secure funds to charter fire-fighting aircraft and, for the first time this summer, over the period from 1 June to 30 September, we set up and commissioned an airborne fire-fighting force under the supervision of the European Commission, the EU forest fire tactical reserve, whose aircraft were involved in fire-fighting operations in various countries. To be precise it was mobilised in six of the nine incidents in which the Community Mechanism for Civil Protection was called upon for assistance.
In fact, the national airborne resources, be they Greek, Portuguese or Italian, and those that came from other countries, were joined by the purely Community fire-fighting aircraft, which fly under the flag of the European Union, not under the flag of a Member State.
The aim of this pilot programme was to fill gaps in the aerial capacity of the Member States, not to replace available national resources. The reserve aircraft chartered were used this year, as I said, in Portugal, in the south of France and Corsica, in Italy and in Greece, in the area of Attica, where we had major fires. They are based on the island of Corsica, which is equidistant for the purpose of intervention from either side of the Mediterranean."@en1
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