Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-10-13-Speech-4-010"
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"en.20051013.3.4-010"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I should first like to thank those in the Commission, Parliament and indeed the Council, with which I had some contact, who helped me draw up this own-initiative report. I hope that it will be adopted in due course.
What has got into Parliament to make it address urban issues, which are certainly not enshrined in our treaties and which do not usually fall within our competence? I feel that, in order to gain a proper understanding of the situation as it stands, it is worth taking a quick look back. Over the past half-century, our institutions have focused a great deal on tackling crucial headline issues such as, initially, coal and steel, the common agricultural policy, the Single Act – one of the cornerstones of our European organisation, enabling people, capital, goods and services to move freely throughout our countries – and then, more recently, the single currency. While these landmark events were taking place, our European organisation adopted thousands of measures relating to the citizens’ daily lives. Yet, despite all of this, we have not seen any coherent development regarding the urban and suburban areas where 3 700 000 people, 80% of the population, live. I wish to stress the terms urban and suburban.
That being said, several important decisions have been taken over the past 15 to 20 years. The first of these decisions – and, no doubt, a significant one too – was taken in 1988, when Article 10 of the European Regional Development Fund specified the need for urban pilot projects. Two years later, in 1990, two documents were published: a Green Paper on the urban environment and a report on urban areas in crisis. In 1993, Jacques Delors organised a European symposium on cities. As regards the URBAN programme, which is the subject under discussion, the first programme appeared in 1994, followed by a second in 2000. Lastly, the URBACT data exchange programme came into being in 2004. In other words, the last 15 years has seen a steady trickle of programmes and measures on urban issues being adopted. I should also point out that, at the same time, in recent years, there have been many conferences, colloquiums and other fora on the subject.
In recent months, though, things have moved ahead altogether more quickly. On 30 November 2004 the Dutch Presidency held an informal Council in Rotterdam, which placed the accent on the urban dimension and adopted an outstanding text on the subject. I should also point out, in conjunction with my fellow members of the URBAN intergroup, that the URBAN-housing intergroup was set up in 2005. A large number of articles on urban policy have appeared in all the documents relating to the regional funds prepared by the Commission before 2004. In December, the British Presidency is set to host a meeting on sustainable communities in Bristol. We can see, therefore, that urban issues have come a long way.
What is the question before us today? What we see in our urban and suburban areas is a certain amount of waste. One Member of this House, who is here today, pointed out to us the other day, for example, that, in Leipzig, 30% of refurbished housing remains unoccupied. Is that not a huge waste? Have we not seen – thanks mainly to our regional funds, but also to national funds and local budgets – the occasional school built here and there without accommodation being refurbished, or vice versa, accommodation refurbished without infrastructure such as public transport being renovated? The time has come to put an end to such waste. The time has come for us to adopt a much more coherent policy.
My report, which has been the subject of lengthy debate, is not intended to set fresh objectives. We already have objectives. The purpose of this report is to equip us with the resources to achieve the Lisbon and Gothenburg objectives in our towns and cities. What are those resources? I presume you have all read this own-initiative report. I should like to highlight some crucial points, such as the fact that our three institutions – Parliament, the Council and the Commission, which prepares and implements legislation – need an internal shake-up so as to enhance the effectiveness of their decisions on urban issues. We are witnessing a power struggle between the Member States, the regions, the cities and indeed the EU, and these authorities must now work together much more coherently in order greatly to improve their own effectiveness once and for all. We need to develop urban policy that is integrated in both spatial and thematic terms. I have spoken about this from the perspective of the negative picture I painted earlier. We cannot implement a measure unless it works in tandem with other measures.
I shall conclude by emphasising good practice. I often say that the awareness and application of tried and tested good practice is often far more productive than a small allocation of funds. Urban policy does not fall under Parliament’s powers. Let us not be under any illusion; Parliament is not about to release further vast sums of money in the framework of the financial perspective to fund new urban perspectives. Everything hinges on whether we can improve our organisation and our effectiveness. This is the proposal that I put to you in the various provisions contained in my report."@en1
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