Press Release

04/09/2007

Rapid relief for victims of natural disasters and better European reaction in emergencies. EP Resolution adopts all EPP-ED proposals. Ioannis Varvitsiotis MEP

An overwhelming majority of the European Parliament today adopted all the EPP-ED Group's proposals in the common Resolution on natural disasters for the immediate compensation of the victims of the recent forest fires in Greece. The EPP-ED Group was the first group to table proposals and initiated the discussion on forest fires in Greece, which took place last night in the plenary.

According to the Resolution, the European Parliament asks the Commission to mobilise without delay and in the most flexible manner the EU Solidarity Fund, avoiding time-consuming procedures and administrative obstacles. The necessary resources for relieving and satisfying the needs of victims and their relatives need to be made available not only by means of the EU Solidarity Fund but also by any other Community Instrument or other financial means.

The Community Civil Protection Mechanism was activated twelve times for the same kind of emergency over a two-month period and seven of the emergencies were simultaneous. As a result, the assistance was not sufficient to ensure a rapid and adequate civil protection response to all of the emergencies. Thus it is important to improve the response capacity of the EU in such cases. The EP also adopted the EPP-ED amendment which acknowledges that the scale and impact of these phenomena frequently go beyond the regional and national level and call for an effective European commitment as a matter of urgency. In this framework, the Parliament requests the creation of a European Force that could immediately react in emergencies. It also invites the Commission to look into the possibility of having pre-arranged access to a complementary capacity to ensure a rapid response to major emergencies, which may be available from other sources, including the commercial market.

It also deplores the fact that so many of these forest fires appear to have been started by acts of arson, and is particularly concerned that criminal acts of arson are increasingly to blame for forest fires in Europe. It therefore calls on Member States to strengthen penal sanctions for criminal acts that damage the environment. The Resolution also predicts measures on reforestation policy, prevention of natural disasters and the improvement of fire-fighting methods. It suggests that a delegation from the European Parliament be sent to the countries most affected by recent natural disasters in order to express its solidarity with the population. The delegation will monitor the level of destruction to lives, properties, social networks, the environment and the economy, and will draw useful conclusions with a view to improving prevention and responses in the future to similar extreme situations in the EU.

For further information:
Ioannis Varvitsiotis MEP
Tel: +32-2-2845680
E-mail: ioannis.varvitsiotis@europarl.europa.eu

Notes to Editors:
The EPP-ED Group is the largest political group in the European Parliament with 278 Members from all 27 Member States.