Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-09-04-Speech-1-130"
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"en.20060904.20.1-130"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the audacity with which Mr Galeote has tried to claim ownership of this resolution is not going to stop me from saying to all of you that, from the outset, that is to say, since Monday of last week, we Socialists have been in no doubt whatsoever that we wanted a motion for a resolution, that we wanted it in this sitting and that we wanted it on this issue.
This is because, like the floods in central Europe, ladies and gentlemen, the fires in southern Europe are a recurring environmental emergency. Their causes have been very well studied: more than 80% are caused by human actions, either negligent or wilful, with a deliberate intention to cause damage.
We are talking about how a fire starts, however. How a fire starts is one thing, but its spread, the area burnt, is quite another. Other factors are at play here. The weather, for example, which this year was very extreme with very strong winds, very high temperatures, and little or no rainfall, or the state of the countryside which, for socio-economic reasons, has been abandoned, and is full of highly combustible undergrowth that helps fires to spread, as well as the planting of inappropriate forest species and the abandonment for decades of a genuine forestry policy.
In the countries of the Mediterranean south, huge amounts have been invested in fire-fighting resources. Throughout southern Europe we have very efficient extinguishing mechanisms, but the resources are never sufficient: suffice it to say that this summer in Galicia, ladies and gentlemen, there have been more than 7 000 people and more than 60 aircraft dedicated to putting the fires out, but how can they fight 300 fires every day?
In this regard, what we Socialists are asking from the Commission is very clear. On the one hand, that the Commission facilitate the application in this case of the Solidarity Fund by means of the political criterion: we want the Solidarity Fund to be applied to the affected populations and regions in the European Union.
We are also asking for two other things. One relates to Forest Focus. We have established a warning system that is effective, but insufficient. It is effective in that it allows us to identify areas of climate risk or quite simply areas at risk of natural disaster, but it does not indicate the areas of socio-economic risk. We Socialists argue that, behind these fires, there lies the serious abandonment of the more traditional farming practices and also the ageing of the population currently living in rural areas.
We are also asking you to mobilise the European forestry strategy. We believe that Commissioner Dimas must find the money and the instruments to create effective policies aimed at keeping people in the countryside by means of that plan or that forestry strategy and also at maintaining and extending our areas of forest."@en1
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