Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-09-03-Speech-2-155"
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"en.20020903.6.2-155"2
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"Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by expressing my very heartfelt thanks for all my fellow-Members' solidarity and sympathy, as this is a really difficult time for people in the affected areas of Central Europe. The last time Austria experienced a flood disaster of this magnitude was over a century ago. We are especially grateful to the Commission and the Presidency of the Council for their prompt action in response to this catastrophe. I would also like to thank all the Austrian MEPs for the solidarity and cooperation which have been manifested without regard to party political boundaries, and also all the voluntary aid workers, the voluntary fire brigades, the Red Cross, the Austrian Federal Army for their tireless endeavours. I am myself from an affected area in Lower Austria and have personal experience of their superhuman efforts.
It took no time at all for many livelihoods to be destroyed, with, for example, over 20 000 hectares of Austrian arable land inundated. The damage done has been enormous, meaning, among other things, that harvesting cannot be completed in the areas where threshing is done late, and that many fields and meadows cannot be mown as they are still under water as a result of the continuing high groundwater level. Machines and equipment are sinking into the fields, and shortages of animal feedingstuffs are to be reckoned with.
The Commission's immediate authorisation of measures to help farmers is therefore a matter of life and death for us, and for it they have my heartfelt gratitude. In a study, the Austrian Institute of Economic Research puts a figure of over EUR 7.5 billion on the damage. The destruction of many businesses and of the infrastructure in these regions has set the areas' development back by years. Parliament and the EU as a whole must give aid, actively and with all speed. The time has come to demonstrate this. I see this as a chance for the Europe in which we share to prove itself.
I really do welcome the emergency aid that the EU gives, one of the most important features of which is, as many of the previous speakers have already said, the transparency of the process and the absence of bureaucracy involved. This is an area where – to speak very frankly – the governments of the affected areas also need to make the necessary funds available without delay. Emergency aid must find a place in the Supplementary Budget. We have to set up an efficient disaster fund, give it sufficient funds and define criteria for it. It must be possible to give this fund an endowment of a billion euros.
Disasters will happen over and over again, but our society is distinguished by the way we treat nature and live in harmony with it, and by our solidarity with those visited by misfortune, for we can all be in their position."@en1
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