Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-11-22-Speech-1-107"
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"en.20101122.15.1-107"2
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"Mr President, thank you all for your engagement and discussion on a topic that is, unfortunately, going to be with us for quite some time to come. This is not an easy crisis to resolve.
My fourth point concerns engagement. You called for the Commission to be very directly engaged: we are, and will continue to be so. Baroness Ashton will very probably be in Haiti tomorrow, and I am planning to go myself because at this point, mobilisation, good coordination and, frankly, also giving hope to people there, and to our own staff, are important. Our own people are struggling with a very difficult situation: they are in places where the Haitian health officials become scared by the epidemic and just leave, and they then have to handle a massive increase in cases.
What we need to do now is to make sure that we retain a calm presence and try to steer the course for people which gives them the most hope. One Member spoke about the Haitian people being very resilient. They are, and they deserve all our help at this very difficult time.
We have had some estimates about the scale of the problem over the coming months – including from our own experts – and I agree very much with those who said we need to deploy expertise from the European Centre for Disaster Control in Haiti. The estimates are that somewhere between half a million and 720 000 people will be infected before this wave of epidemics is over.
The Pan American Health Organisation estimate of 400 000 is a little lower but of the same order of magnitude. So we will have to mobilise. I agree with each and every one of you who spoke about immediate mobilisation and the need to help right now.
Let me make four points. The first is how we can best help. This is a time when we have to deploy true partner organisations and immediately give them the resources to act. We also have to call on the Member States to provide in-kind assistance. Since Thursday, when I addressed the Member States, we have been seeing support coming through, but more is needed in terms of healthcare professionals, water purification tablets and support for an awareness campaign, because – as many here have said – there is widespread misunderstanding of what this disease is and how it can best be treated. As a result, people die unnecessarily because they are scared to go to treatment centres: they are afraid of catching the disease there rather than being treated for it.
Secondly, a number of speakers have talked about the pledged money and what is happening with reconstruction in Haiti. The pledge made by the Commission has been honoured. The Commission committed EUR 460 million and is delivering according to the timetable which it announced, and the High Representative and Vice-President, Cathy Ashton, and Commissioner Piebalgs are about to take stock with Member States on where we stand with the money we have promised to provide. I can assure you that this is going to be taken very seriously, because the reputation of the international community is at stake at a very difficult time.
However – and this is my third point, which is a very important one – there is a limit to the absorptive capacity in Haiti, which I believe I talked about with some of you. When I first arrived in Haiti, I thought that, terrible as this disaster was, it was not Haiti’s worst problem. Haiti’s biggest problem was the many decades of lack of development and the absence of a functional state which, among other things, also means the absence of a functional health service.
I saw people in camps queuing in front of a doctor, not because they were sick, but because they had never seen a doctor in their lives and were taking advantage of a health service being offered in the camps.
This total lack of the skills and capabilities of a functional state creates problems that are making this epidemic worse. We are still struggling to get the government to authorise space for the disposal of dead bodies – without which the epidemics can, of course, spread further – and to dislodge latrines so that sanitation can improve. So I cannot stress strongly enough how critical it is for us to understand that Haiti’s problems are not easy to resolve, because at the heart of this problem is these decades of lack of development and the absence of a functional state.
A question was asked about the elections and whether they should still be held. The Haitian authorities prefer to stick to the timetable. It is difficult for me to give an answer. I have not yet been to Haiti, but my feeling is that cancelling or postponing the elections might actually destabilise a very difficult situation. There may be something to be gained by holding the elections but, as I have said, this is based on what I have heard, not on what I have seen."@en1
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