Strasbourg, 08/09/2006 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament is urging the Finnish Presidency to ensure that the EU develops a rapid reaction force to deal with natural disasters and to boost the EU's civil protection capacity. This was the important message that emerged from the EP's adoption on 7 September of a joint resolution from six political groups on how the EU dealt with forest fires and floods last summer.
The MEPs note that much of the damage caused by natural disasters could have been avoided and urge the EU to introduce prevention policies and relevant legislation to preserve farmland and forests. They call for sufficient resources to be allocated to civil protection in the event of major disasters and regret the lukewarm response by the Council to the idea of setting up an EU civil protection mechanism (an idea mentioned in Michel Barnier's report). The EP notes that the Forest Focus objective, to prevent forest fires, has not been achieved because the number of forest fires is increasing rather than decreasing, and urges the EU institutions and Member States to conclude procedures to set up an EU civil protection mechanism.
The European Parliament urges the Commission to beef up the EU's forestry policy and to include support measures to prevent forest fires, help landowners and landowner organisations implement such activities as pollarding, non-commercial pruning, slashing, clearing the forest biomass, creating control lines and fire breaks, building forest roads and depositing water. It calls on the Commissions to re-introduce aid for farmers in new rural development programmes to create and maintain fire breaks. It also wants the Commission to unveil concrete measures to ensure the use of biomass from Southern European forests to generate electricity.
The EP wants Member States to increase penalties for crimes that damage the environment, like arson and causing forest fires. It is unhappy that during the recent forest fires it experienced, Russia did not seem to be interested in cooperating with its neighbours, and asked the Commission to address the matter under its Partnership and Cooperation Agreement with Russia.