Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-01-18-Speech-2-165"
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"en.20000118.6.2-165"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, permit me, first of all, to make reference to two facts. Firstly, at the beginning of 1999, NATO, with the participation of most Member States of the European Union, flattened Kosovo with bombs in the name of freedom. We are now endeavouring, at huge cost, to get the country back on its feet again and help its people, and rightly so.
Secondly, at the end of 1999 unbelievable storms raged bringing death and destruction to vast tracts of the EU. The Commission in Brussels responded to the victims’ cries for help with a shrugging of shoulders. “We do not have the wherewithal for that,” they said.
This is wrong! And no one can comprehend this attitude. Certainly those who fear for their livelihood are at a complete loss. The citizens of the European Union expect solidarity, also from within this Community. I say they have a right to solidarity. Indeed the European Parliament must make it its business to uphold this right in hours of need. I urge the Commission not to keep having to be asked and to provide assistance for the victims of the storms. It knows the ins and outs of aid provision better than any local organisation or authority. I call upon you, ladies and gentlemen, to support me in bringing home to the Commission the fact that what most Brussels offices are lacking is not so much the wherewithal for providing aid as the good will.
Permit me one further comment. Although it was less evident in the case of the consequences of the storm, the tanker disaster off the French coast has made it very clear that we need to give the Commission a helping hand on another matter. The European Union needs rules governing environmental liability as a matter of urgency. We can no longer tolerate a situation where the general public has to foot the bill for damage that has often been caused by individuals involved in criminal machinations. We must make the perpetrators liable for all manner of damage done to our environment. Then, for example, people will think twice before transporting oil in a tanker that is about to fall apart.
When, in 1994, over five years ago that is, I joined the Legal Affairs Committee in this Parliament, I became rapporteur for the environmental liability dossier. To this day I am still awaiting an initiative from the Commission, which will actually enable me to start work. It is a scandalous state of affairs that must be ended with all haste, and I hope that February does not see this dossier being postponed yet again!"@en1
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