Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-09-03-Speech-2-146"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20020903.6.2-146"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, it was with horror that we watched as the rivers of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Bavaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Austria, both great and small, became rivers of destruction. Never before had the Elbe, the river that runs through Dresden, my home town, broken its original banks with such brutality. It destroyed much of the reconstruction work of Germany's post-reunification period, destroyed new homes, and, above all, took all the possessions of young people starting businesses and homes – they will be in debt for generations – and largely wrecked the newly-renovated city centre to a truly massive degree.
No words of mine could be equal to the task of describing the losses, the suffering and the despair of the victims. When I refer to my home town, let it be taken as a symbol representing the many small towns that have also been affected as much as the great cities of Germany and its neighbouring countries. For my own part and on behalf of my group, I would like to express my deep sympathy with all of them. My desire is that this discussion may become a real sign of solidarity and that a disaster fund may come into being, founded in a spirit of solidarity with all regions rather than with only a few of them and including the candidate countries.
Both residents and visitors always had a healthy respect for the Elbe. The city has come to terms with the spring floods, but now the newly-emerging plans for the trans-European networks will make it into a basin with fast currents endangering the people on the riverbank. So I call on the Commission to reconsider whether their plans for the development of the Elbe and also of the Danube are still justified in the light of current experience.
There is a development plan for the Danube, one that is sustainable and will preserve the alluvial forests. It is now for the Commission to deal with the question of whether they will finance this plan alone or enter into some sort of arrangement for the financing of dams. As regards the Elbe, it is still an open question to what extent the Commission will take on responsibility for the plans that exist to develop it, which have been shown to be unworkable. That they have not yet been implemented – which was a great good fortune, as the flood would otherwise have been even more torrential – is due to the initiatives emerging from civil society that have to date prevented these plans from actually coming to fruition. The coming weeks, though, will see the question raised of whether it will be possible to preserve the important alluvial forests and their resources, and hence also to keep the waters back, or whether the Elbe development will proceed.
The same is true of the Oder, for which there are similar plans; there are nature reserves near the Oder as well, and it threatens to flood villages. The question facing the Commission is whether a new plan can be successfully drawn up and whether all existing plans can be reviewed, so that the Commission, too, may take full responsibility in this area."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples