Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-04-14-Speech-4-138"
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"en.20050414.23.4-138"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when we called for this debate, we were naturally counting on Parliament’s commitment, and, at this point, I should like to express my appreciation to all of the political groups for Parliament’s show of solidarity.
The drought in Portugal is extremely serious, as we know, and as Mr Borg has just described. Only a month ago, on 15 March, around 88% of Portuguese territory was suffering severe, or even extreme, drought, and despite recent rainfall, much has been irrecoverably lost. According to available data, even with average rainfall over the coming months – and the forecasts do not suggest in any way that this will be the case – we could be facing a situation that only happens once every 40 years.
Farming has been damaged, livestock is at risk, supplies to some communities have already been restricted and all of this in already habitually depressed regions. Indeed, as the situation becomes worse towards the summer, there is a danger that tourism, one of Portugal’s most important industries, will be seriously affected, and the effects of the drought will spread to many sectors and many thousands of Portuguese people. Immediate action is also needed to prevent a repeat of the devastating fires of two years ago, which were partly caused by a dry period, albeit not even approaching the scale of this one.
The situation is therefore worthy of EU solidarity and the longer we leave it to show that solidarity, the greater the cost and the less effective the impact. We therefore hope that the impulse of Parliament’s adoption of the proposed resolution leads the Commission to take quick and effective action to follow up Portugal’s requests, and there is clear evidence here that they are prepared to do this.
We also hope, should this become necessary, that the Commission will analyse and approve any plan for state aid – already mentioned here – with the aim of creating appropriations to compensate for losses, and of meeting the need to reinvest and restructure the debts incurred by farmers, whose survival is, after all, the reason why we are here today."@en1
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