Brussels, 23/06/2008 (Agence Europe) - Anxious to prevent the summer 2007 scenarios, characterised by devastating forest fires in the south east of Europe, the EP has called on the Commission to immediately improve the EU's instruments for improving its repose to natural disasters and adopt new ones, if needs be. This is the main message in a resolution adopted by a large majority (523 for, 37 against, 20 abstentions) last week in Strasbourg.
In this resolution, Parliament welcomed the action plan presented in March 2008 by the European Commission to reinforce EU disaster capacity, natural or man-made, in the EU or elsewhere (EUROPE 9616). It also welcomed the general aim of improving coherency, efficiency and visibility in the EU response in similar cases. Given the serious flooding over recent years, Parliament believes that enhancing EU prevention and response capacity is a high political priority objective and underlines the fact that climate change is a crucial cause in the frequency and increased seriousness of natural disasters. On this basis, the resolution stresses that the EU's environmental policy and legislation on fighting global warming should form the foundations on which the EU responds to disasters.
Although Parliament supports the Commission's idea for developing a data base on natural disasters, necessary and available capacity and the impact of the different options planned for meeting shortcomings, it also believes that this should not serve as a pretext for putting off major proposals on protecting people, goods and the environment against disasters.
The Commission is therefore invited to urgently submit, at the end of the year by the latest, proposals on preventing disasters in the EU, as well as on a European response strategy to the risks of disasters in developing countries. MEPs believe that the Commission's approach ought to cover the whole cycle of disasters: prevention through to rehabilitation. They also highlight the need to enhance response capacity at an international level, with support from essential humanitarian players like the UN and NGOs.
Parliament deplores the fact that the proposal made by former Commissioner Michel Barnier, to set up a European civil protection force, remained a dead letter. They underline the need for continued development of rapid response capacity by drawing on civil protection modules in member states (as requested by the European Council in June 2006) and calls on the Commission to elaborate a specific proposal on this subject.
MEPs deplore the fact that the EU Council is not advocating the adoption of the new regulation on the European Union Solidarity Fund (EUSF), which had the full support of parliament. MEPs are calling on the European Council to make progress on a dossier that has been in the making for more than two years, although in Parliament's opinion, lowering the fund mobilisation ceilings would allow for more efficient, flexible and swifter damage compensation. In the meantime, the Commission is being called on, if necessary, to use the current EUSF in as flexible a way as possible and without delay to mitigate the suffering and cover the needs of disaster victims.
To rectify shortfalls in legislation, policies and current EU programmes, for preventing and responding to disasters, Parliament is calling on the Commission to immediately present a range of legally binding instruments, such as a framework directive. This framework should include three chapters: strengthened prevention in existing EU mechanisms and member state strategies; development of a new framework prevention strategy; support for developing knowledge and technologies through EU R&D.
Parliament believes that implementation of resources (primarily drawing on national capacities) should be done to facilitate and guarantee immediate participation in European civil protection operations. The Commission is being called on to support a 2008 pilot project on forest fires and preparatory action for a rapid response capacity to explore operational mechanisms with member states and other parties with which arrangements could be made. (A.N./trans.r.h)