The European Parliament adopted a resolution based on
the own-initiative report drafted by Luis Manuel CAPOULAS
SANTOS (PES, PT) on the agricultural aspects of natural
disasters (forest fires, drought and floods). The resolution was
adopted by 397 votes in favour 70 against and 26 abstentions. (This
resolution is closely linked to two other resolutions adopted at
the same time, on the environmental and agricultural aspects
respectively, of natural disasters. Please see INI/2005/2192 and
INI/2005/2193.)
Parliament felt that the Solidarity Fund should
continue to cover intervention in the case of disasters which are,
though significant, under the damage threshold laid down but embody
severe and lasting repercussions on the living conditions of the
inhabitants of a given region, with the possibility of
extraordinary assistance existing in such cases. The Commission
must submit a legislative proposal introducing a flexibility clause
which would enable the policy existing instruments, notably the
EUSF, to deal with natural disasters in the agricultural sector to
be properly financed, by using CAP headings which are currently
unused every year.
Parliament believed that rural development policy
could play a useful role in the prevention of natural disasters. It
stressed that the drastic reduction in resources for rural
development hindered the drafting of action plans to prevent damage
caused by natural disasters. It recommended, however, that national
and regional rural development plans give priority to measures
aimed at the causes of the disasters (inter alia, the fight against
erosion, the repopulation of woodland with appropriate species, the
preservation of firebreaks, hydraulic projects, the maintenance of
woodland, and water-saving agro-environmental action).
Moving on, Parliament urged the Commission to provide
support for measures aimed at reducing the combustibility of
forests, such as encouraging the profitability of forests and their
sustainable management, and using residual forest biomass as
renewable energy. The Member States and the Commission were also
asked to implement a programme for the exchange of experiences on
the application of new technologies for the management and
monitoring of forest fires, and to draw up procedures for
European-level validation of the qualifications of technical staff.
It was essential, furthermore, that within the framework of the
rural development plans, priority should be given to actions
tending to combat the structural rural problems (inter alia,
depopulation, the abandoning of farmland, the protection of the
countryside from intensive building, deforestation, and the
excessive fragmentation of woodland ownership) which, if they are
not held in check, will increase future levels of potential risk.
It was also essential, in the context of the Financial Framework
for 2007-2013, to establish a Community programme for protection
against forest fires, with a view to promoting awareness campaigns,
risk-prevention, and risk-management measures regarding forest
fires, suitably funded and complementing agricultural and
structural policy. This programme must lead to the identification
of financing allocated to measures aimed at preventing forest
fires. Such a programme must take account of the specific
characteristics of the Mediterranean forests.
Parliament was committed to:
- setting up a public insurance scheme, jointly
financed by farmers, the Member States and the EU, with a view to
creating a better policy framework for risk management and crisis
prevention; and
- setting up a consistent and affordable reinsurance
scheme for all Member States under the CAP.
This potential new risk-management instrument would
need to include a specific insurance for forests, to cover at least
the costs of reforestation and ecological rehabilitation after
fires. The Commission's proposal would make it difficult to obtain
the strong public support required in order for this instrument to
be effective.
Parliament also affirmed that serious market crises constitute
unforeseen and exceptional events which expose farms to risks that
may be as great as those caused by natural disasters
and that compensation for these should also be
envisaged.
A genuine strategy to deal with the effects of
disasters in agriculture could be restricted to emergency measures,
and training, information, prevention and awareness-raising
activities needed to be put in place, funded within the framework
of the civil protection mechanism, the Forest Focus programme,
rural development policy and the European Regional Fund. Parliament
insisted on the need to step up active prevention measures for
forest fires, the optimisation and coordination of fire-fighting
methods and systems, the encouragement of the participation of
society, as well as better research into the causes of fires and
stronger action against crime. The following were
important:
- a fire-fighting network to facilitate the financing
of action plans and the acquisition of resources, with appropriate
coordination, at a European level and at an international
level;
- rules on sound forest management and mandatory
reforestation in the event of natural disasters;
- concrete measures for the implementation of
programmes for the active prevention and the environmental
education of the rural population, with a view to explaining new
ways of forestry management and improving awareness of the future
role of forests in particular localities and the benefits arising
from their conservation;
- awareness campaigns, at a European level, to be
targeted at rural populations, the forest owners and the urban
population, and particularly at schoolchildren and young people,
voluntary organisations and the media, with a view to promoting a
change of attitude towards the use of fire;
- drawing up risk maps and management plans should not
be restricted to areas at risk of flooding, as set out in the
Commission proposal, but must also cover drought and fires, which
involved drawing up maps of areas at high risk of drought and fires
within the EU, together with corresponding management
plans;
- the creation of a European drought observatory which
would be responsible for studying, monitoring and reducing the
effects of drought, and which might include permanent arrangements
for the information exchange supporting the prevention of fires
throughout the Union;
- specific risk-prevention measures targeted at
monitoring and managing combustible forest material as well as
managing woodland;
- the Commission should submit a proposal for a
directive on fighting and preventing fires, which would optimise of
the use of the various existing Community instruments, including
the EAFRD, in order to tackle the problem, and to improve
coordination among regions and Member States.
