Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-06-14-Speech-4-195"
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".
Mr President, honourable Members, allow me to start by thanking Parliament and, more particularly, you Madam rapporteur and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy and the Committee on Budgets for your excellent and constructive work on this proposal. There is no need, I think, to enumerate yet again the numerous natural, technological and environmental disasters which have occurred over recent years. The honourable Member has just mentioned one which caused very serious damage in several Member States and neighbouring countries.
So, to summarise, the Commission supports Amendments Nos 3, 6, 9, 10, 11, 15, 18, 23, 25, 27, 31, 35, 36 and 38 to 41. It supports eleven proposed amendments in principle, which are Amendments Nos 4, 7, 19, 22, 24, 26, 30, 32 to 34 and 37, but which need editing. The Commission supports Amendments Nos 5, 8, 13, 14, 16, 21 and 45 in part and rejects Amendments Nos 1, 2, 12, 17, 20, 28, 29, 42 to 44 and 46.
Finally, I must emphasise that our proposal is much improved thanks to Parliament's contribution and support. I am sure that these improvements will help to save more human lives in future and to reduce the damage caused by natural and technological disasters or by nuclear and ecological disasters.
The citizens of Europe have expressed their concern and made clear that they expect the Community to take specific action to guarantee efficient civil protection in an emergency. Parliament too has called on the Commission to take initiatives in this area in a series of resolutions.
The Commission proposal of 27 September last year makes provision for a Community procedure for civil protection intervention in the event of natural, technological or environmental disaster inside or outside the European Union. The aim is to improve and coordinate action taken by Member States in the event both of this sort of serious disaster and in the event of nuclear or ecological disaster and to create the facility for immediate aid if a country does not have the necessary capacity.
May I say, as regards the results of Parliament's work, that the Commission agrees wholeheartedly with many of the proposed amendments because they improve the Commission's proposal considerably. The most important improvements are: the creation of a monitoring and information centre as an operational tool for implementing the decision to set up a database on the Member States' production and storage capacities for serum and vaccines and other emergency medical resources, the importance attached to aid for isolated and outermost regions of the Union, the use of new technologies, including in notification systems, warning systems and systems for exchanging information and the use of satellite technologies for the purpose of the procedure and the references to the cultural heritage.
We are therefore able to accept 35 of the 46 proposed amendments in full, in principle or in part.
As far as the remaining proposed amendments are concerned, we still have a number of queries, mainly on the following aspects: first, the reference to the humanitarian aid component contained in Amendment No 12. This proposed amendment could give rise to a certain amount of confusion and the risk of duplicating the ECHO programme. The Commission would like to avoid this and has therefore rejected this amendment.
Then there is the need for immediate action at Community level in the event of deliberate marine pollution. I refer here to Amendments Nos 1 and 13. The concept of ‘deliberate marine pollution’ is not, I think, the correct or a suitable concept here, because deliberate marine pollution does not trigger fast action and whether or not fast action is needed depends on the type of pollution or the type of disaster.
Then there is the question of the exact definition of the role and remit of the operational monitoring and information centre. I refer here to parts of Amendments Nos 5, 14 and 16. The Commission rejects Amendment No 17.
The references to the monitoring and information centre are a constructive contribution. However, some of the wording is misleading and therefore needs to be revised or deleted. The centre should be a tool for the Commission and the Member States, not an operator."@en1
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