Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-01-12-Speech-3-053"
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"en.20050112.4.3-053"2
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".
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, the unprecedented disaster that occurred on 26 December affected 12 countries and has claimed over 160 000 victims to date, without taking into account the thousands of missing persons, the large number of casualties and the many displaced or homeless persons, of whom there are estimated to be five million. Children who have been orphaned or separated from family members are particularly vulnerable in these circumstances. Sanitary conditions are a cause of great concern, and the extent of the material damage defies any attempt at calculation.
Secondly, improvements will be made to the civil protection mechanism and humanitarian aid, and analytical capacity enhanced. The Council hopes to build up rapid response capabilities for the European Union by putting in place appropriate structures for planning, coordination and resource mobilisation.
The third such instrument is the stepping up of consular cooperation.
Fourthly, there are other measures which the Council will need to examine, such as the development of an EU rapid response capability, or in other words an early-warning system. The setting up of a European Voluntary Humanitarian Aid Corps will also need to be assessed, and coordination within the European Union in the fields of rescue, evacuation and the transport of supplies and medical aid stepped up.
Further measures include trade support and bilateral partnerships, such as the twinning of towns and hospitals, and, finally, the rescheduling of debt servicing for affected countries wishing to embark on such rescheduling. This should be an item on the agenda of the Ecofin Council to be held next week.
The General Affairs Council of 31 January will return to all the measures and strategies envisaged by the EU and the Member States for the medium and long term, with a view to drawing up an operational action plan for the EU.
On the evening of 7 January, Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, the European Commissioner competent for such matters, myself and the ministers responsible for health and cooperation reported back to a large delegation from this House.
This week, the presidency and the Commission will continue to hold an intensive dialogue with the relevant European Parliament bodies in order to implement the EU’s financial commitments, and I hope that during the General Affairs Council of 31 January we will be able to give concrete expression to some of the strategies sketched out during the General Affairs Council of 7 January.
Given the scale of the disaster, and in close cooperation with the Dutch Presidency, the Luxembourg Presidency reacted immediately after 26 December by visiting the area concerned on 1 January, along with the Commission. On the same day, the Luxembourg Minister for Health also contacted and met with officials from the WHO and the International Red Cross.
On the basis of these first contacts with the United Nations and the countries affected, and following the extended emergency summit held in Jakarta, the presidency called a General Affairs and External Relations Council on 7 January, which brought together a great many ministers for foreign affairs, cooperation and health.
The Council meeting of 7 January reiterated the European Union’s solidarity with the countries affected and with their citizens, whom it thanked – and this is a very important point – for the support they gave to European citizens present in those countries at the time of the disaster. The Council also paid tribute to the general spirit of solidarity that had been demonstrated by civil society and by the public.
The Council meeting provided us with an opportunity to review both the many initiatives taken by the Commission and the Member States and the much-needed coordination of EU aid. We turned our joint attention to the best way of responding to the emergency in terms of financial, material and health aid, and the financial and operational resources which would be necessary and adequate for the subsequent stages of rehabilitation and reconstruction. Officials from UN agencies, namely the OCHA, the WHO and UNICEF, were invited to take part in this meeting. They provided the Council with additional information regarding the situation on the ground and the measures which had been taken, as well as an assessment of future needs. In this connection, it was stressed that the UN would play a central role in the coordination of aid.
The main and most immediate outcomes of this Council meeting were as follows; with regard to financial issues, the Council announced that combined state aid from the European Union and the Member States for the victims of the tsunami currently stood at around EUR 1.5 billion, including both emergency aid and reconstruction aid. The Council noted, however, that this figure should not lead us to forget the general issue of development, humanitarian aid and the Millennium Development Goals, especially in Africa, nor to reduce the resources set aside for that purpose.
With regard to health issues, the Member States were invited to combine their efforts under the auspices of the WHO, in order to prevent the risk of epidemics and to put in place health infrastructures by supplying appropriate materials and medical teams. The European Union and its Member States will act in support of the WHO.
With regard to more long-term measures, the Council expressed its hope that the European Union’s capacity to deal with major disasters would be enhanced, and stated its intention to put in place the following instruments.
The first of these instruments is a prevention strategy and an early-warning and rapid reaction system for disasters, particularly with a view to the World Conference on Disaster Reduction, which will be held in Kobe, in Japan, from 18 to 22 January."@en1
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