Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-09-27-Speech-2-136"
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"en.20050927.18.2-136"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to say to Mr Guellec and Mr Marques, both personally and on behalf of my colleagues in the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, that it was a great pleasure to work on their reports, which, of course, are essentially acceptable to us.
For my part, I would like to focus more particularly on one of the points raised in Mr Guellec’s report, but which also affects Mr Marques’s report, as Mr Guellec has examined the role of urban centres and the surrounding areas.
For a number of years we have readily been talking – I myself represent a town, Rheims in Champagne – about the concept of catchment areas. Catchment areas are zones covering both a town, whether small, medium-sized or large, and all the surrounding rural areas up to 5, 10, 15, 20, or even, to take the French capital, Paris, as an example, up to 200 kilometres outside it, where a number of people travel every day between their homes and their workplaces. It was therefore vital, in order to achieve the Lisbon and Gothenburg objectives, for the European Union to fit the bulk of its assistance into the framework of harmonious, consistent territorial development.
These catchment areas, in particular, must play a central role, which is currently not the case. I have mentioned travel; it is clear that, in all catchment areas, there are housing problems. Housing is more expensive in the town centre, and cheaper on the outskirts; people choose to live in the outskirts because it is quieter there, or because housing is cheaper. All of this results in problems with daily commuting. We are seeing depopulated villages just a few kilometres from our towns, while, in some neighbourhoods, there is appalling overcrowding. We are experiencing security problems, and I could go on.
It is therefore perfectly natural that, in order to achieve the Lisbon and Gothenburg objectives, we need to ensure that there is real cohesion within these catchment areas, between the town centre, the suburbs, the immediate surroundings and the more remote areas. Can we overcome these problems without too much difficulty? The answer is obviously no, in view of the large number of players involved. These include housing associations, decision-makers in the employment sector, and, of course, political decision-makers operating at local, regional and national level. We are all aware of the difficulties involved in harmonising the positions of the various political organisations.
In this regard, Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I think that the European Union currently has a central part to play, in providing a stimulus to create, over the years to come, true cohesion in all of these areas, and harmonious development within these catchment areas.
Finally, Mr Marques, I have already mentioned the respect I have for your report, and the support that we give it. I hope that, in all of our outermost regions, whether in the areas surrounding small towns, larger towns or in any other areas, the EUR 1 100 000 000 that we obviously hope will be released will enable us to realise the harmonious development for which we all hope and pray."@en1
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