Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-01-19-Speech-2-045"
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"en.20100119.4.2-045"2
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"Mr President, first of all, I would like to tell Mr Le Hyaric, who is calling for food surpluses to be shipped to Haiti, that this is not the European Union’s approach, for the simple reason that the Commission prefers to purchase these products in the region. We will begin by seeing whether we can purchase them in the region rather than transport our surpluses to Haiti.
Secondly, concerning the whole matter of coordination and civil protection and so on, let me just say three things.
First, civil protection is a competence of the Member States, and all coordination initiatives must be built on this basis. This was also proposed by the Barnier report but, up to now, we have not reached a conclusion. It is a competence of the Member States and not of the Commission as such.
Secondly, as far as civil protection and its coordination is concerned, since the 2004 tsunami, EU civil protection coordination has grown stronger and much more efficient. Virtual exercises can, of course, never test enough the effectiveness of our cooperation as much as natural disasters do, sadly enough. In this crisis, non-EU Member States are calling the MIC to see how they can contribute to the relief effort with EU facilities.
Thirdly, let us not forget that, in the second Barroso Commission, humanitarian relief and civil protection have been combined under one Commissioner, which is, I think, a very valuable effort. In addition we also now have a High Representative, who will have a double hat. What we have seen in the past about coordination is that it is not lacking inside the Commission for example – I will come back to that in a minute – but it is sometimes between the European institutions and the Member States and between the European Commission and Council. The whole idea behind this double-hatting was precisely that the Council and Commission could work better together, and I think it has been demonstrated in this crisis that this has, in fact, been quite an advance.
Lastly, I would also like to say that I am a little bit sad about what some speakers have said. Of course as a Commissioner, I cannot be sad, I just have to take notice of it, but it does not pay enough tribute to all our people who have been working, on the spot and in Brussels, from hour one, day and night, during the weekend, without any complaint, without asking for any compensation. They have been working very hard and within hours they were also active on the spot, although their facilities were also hit hard.
So please consider that this is the kind of massive disaster that is not foreseeable, that you can only respond to when it occurs, and for which you have to demonstrate that you can organise a response in a very short period of time. I think the Commission has been demonstrating this. I think that the Member States immediately and massively supported our action and I think we should also be a little bit less critical about those services."@en1
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