Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-12-18-Speech-4-157"
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"en.20031218.5.4-157"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, my region, Languedoc-Roussillon, Provence, the whole of southern France, is again stricken by floods. It is true that we have benefited from the solidarity of German and Italian firemen, but the reality as I speak to you now, the reality there even now is that there are hundreds and hundreds of dead bulls and sheep that people are still unable to recover from the flooded pastures and farms.
The reality is that in many small villages, like Codole in Gard, 98% of the houses were destroyed seven days before Christmas, hundreds of families are homeless, with definite budgetary realities. EUR 700 000 are needed for just one kilometre of dyke, EUR 150 000 in one small village to rebuild the roads, millions of euros to reconstruct public buildings, schools, multipurpose rooms, water treatment plants and sewer networks. The reality in a small village is EUR 5 000 every day to feed the homeless, the security services, families, even the military who are on guard to prevent looting; it is at least EUR 40 000 to 80 000 for every damaged house, and there are thousands of them. That is the most important of it. What is to be done? Who will pay? From which budget? Will it be the local authorities, the region, France or Europe?
In theory, Mr President, Commissioner, there are solidarity mechanisms. There is even a solidarity principle in Article 2 of the treaty. There are mechanisms on paper: the ERDF, Objective 2, the EAGGF guarantee which came into play for mad cow disease, direct advances for farmers that were used after the August 2002 floods, the 2000-2004 programme for civil defence and the new Solidarity Fund. In this connection, we all know, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, that the Fund’s strict eligibility criteria and the modest EUR 1 billion allocated to it, which, incidentally, has already been swallowed up by the fires in Portugal or the earthquakes in Italy, are leaving my compatriots of Languedoc-Roussillon very much alone as Christmas approaches.
If, in the case we are concerned with, we have seen the coming of the floods but not of the euros, we must at least work for the future. First, by funding a real time information system, which does not exist since the mayors were not alerted. In these days in which we are living we need an electronic computer system from Lyons to Arles that will allow all the rivers, dykes, canals, arms and tributaries of the Rhône basin to be monitored in real time and the local elected representatives to be alerted in case of danger. The province of Murcia in Spain has done it, Mr President; we ought to be able to.
The crux of the matter lies elsewhere, however. Beyond prevention, reconstruction and compensation we must see that the floods of water mask the reality of a demographic flood. The senior citizens of northern Europe, not to mention the executives of the Paris region, come and make their homes in Languedoc-Roussillon, in Provence and throughout the south of France. Land is expropriated, the ground concreted over, 150 000 hectares of vines have flooded, and this is why, to cut a long story short, the area is swamped. What is more, the Dutch, English, Belgian and northern active European seniors will become truly aged citizens and demand extensive health care infrastructures in our region.
To conclude, the overhaul of the Structural Funds must anticipate this territorial justice: if populations are transferred from north to south, the funding must be transferred as well, otherwise we will become the Palestinians of Europe, seeing colonies of senior citizens from Northern Europe settled among us. We do not want to be a permanently devastated West Bank in the South of France!"@en1
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