Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-12-18-Speech-4-153"
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"en.20031218.5.4-153"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission wishes above all to express its solidarity with the citizens affected by the flooding that has recently affected several parts of southern France. Unfortunately, my colleague Michel Barnier has not been able to come to Strasbourg today. As you know, this question of natural disasters was debated at length here in this very place on 1 September at the end of a scorching summer.
The Commission has been actively working on the question of natural disasters for the last few years in close cooperation with the European Parliament. In the face of the seemingly increasing rate of disasters, two key words underlie the Commission’s action: repair and prevention.
So far as repairs are concerned, it is a matter of solidarity. Following the summer 2002 floods in Austria, the Czech Republic and Germany, on Michel Barnier’s initiative the Commission proposed the creation of the Solidarity Fund. Thanks to the support of your Assembly and the Council, this new instrument has now been in operation for a year, and since its creation its mobilisation has been requested 14 times; it has been effective in eight cases.
At present, the Commission does not yet have sufficient information about the recent flooding in the South of France to be able to say whether it will be possible to mobilise the Fund. In any case, we can only act if officially requested by the French national authorities. If we receive such a request, we will examine it as quickly as possible. Rest assured that we will take the situation in southern France into account in the review we will be presenting at the conference to be organised by the European Commission on 5 March 2004. The purpose of that conference is in fact to review the use made of the Solidarity Fund by several regions of Europe.
I must also point out that the regions of Languedoc-Roussillon and Provence Alpes-Côte d’Azur are already receiving a large amount of EU aid under Objective 2 of the Structural Funds. For the period 2000-2006, this aid amounts to EUR 316 million for Languedoc-Roussillon and EUR 340 million for Provence Alpes-Côte d’Azur. At the time of the floods that affected those regions in September 2002, specific measures were provided to repair the damage caused.
The mid-term review provides the opportunity to again put the emphasis on prevention or repair. If, as seems likely, the regions in question receive money from the performance reserve and if the programmes in question perform well, that could provide around an extra 4% on top of their allocation, that is EUR 10.8 million for Languedoc-Roussillon and EUR 12.3 million for Provence Alpes-Côte d’Azur. The distribution will be proposed to the Commission by the French State before 31 December next. Significant regional development measures may be financed.
Let me now turn to the second key word: we must not be content with repairs, we must also give priority to prevention. These natural disasters raise the fundamental question of climate change and prevention, for which research is required. I want to assure you of my commitment and that of Mrs Wallström and the Commission as a whole in this matter. As Mr Barnier has recently told your Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, he intends proposing that a ‘prevention of natural risks’ line be included in every Structural Funds programme for a future programming period. In like vein, the third report on economic and social cohesion, which will be adopted by the Commission early next year, will propose that risk prevention be made one of the objectives of the Structural Funds during the next programming period, after 2006.
The Commission is also thinking of strengthening European coordination of civil protection, including the formation of a common European civil defence force, an idea on which Mr Barnier is particularly keen and on which he is working closely with Mrs Wallström. This new initiative, which is to be unveiled early next year, would have to build on existing structures, giving them sufficient resources to act quickly and promptly in the event of a disaster of any kind."@en1
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