Mr President, when approximately a year ago we voted here on this Parliament's report at first reading and we achieved a sufficient majority to support the thesis I was advocating, I felt as if I had the strong support of the whole of Parliament. I was advocating that this Parliament needed to demonstrate political firmness in relation to the proposed Forest Focus Regulation, which the Commission was presenting as a replacement for the two former regulations on pollution: combating pollution in Europe and combating fires in Europe. The proposed law presented by the Commission added to these two objectives – ‘pollution’ and ‘fires’ – the study of biodiversity, climate change and carbon retention. The Commission said that all of this had to be done with less money – with EUR 51 million – and that, furthermore, the prevention aspect of combating fires would be transferred to rural development. In this way, this Parliament abandoned codecision for a mere opinion, without being able to control whether these programmes were going to be complied with or not, since they were being left to the Member States and were being transferred to a regulation whose control by Parliament was reduced to an opinion. This Parliament was not therefore politically able to accept that proposal, nor could it accept it when the Council’s common position was communicated and discussed and a small effort was made, of half a million euros, increasing the sum from EUR 13 million to EUR 13.5 million, which represented a minimal effort in terms of assessing our forests. It is not sufficient to say that we believe in them, but rather our support should be reflected in a greater budgetary increase, in a greater effort, since this is the only regulation we have for our forests. We have held numerous meetings, both with the Council and the Commission, in order to reach an agreement and in order that this may become a significant commitment, and this is going to be achieved tomorrow in this Parliament, God willing. A proposal has been received from the Council and accepted in Coreper, which takes account of those principal and priority needs which Parliament had described at first reading. Article 1 places the prevention of fires on an equal footing with the other objectives of the Forest Focus Regulation. Article 13 sets a budgetary increase, not the amount we would have liked, but sufficient so that we could reach agreement amongst all the Member States, increasing it to EUR 61 million until 2006; in Article 18, Member States are urged to present an assessment of the Regulation before the end of 2005, and the Commission to present new proposals from 2006. By means of this agreement, reached amongst the majority of political groups in this House, I hope that tomorrow we will be able to close this regulation at second reading and provide political impetus for European construction. It was very difficult for the countries of the European Union, especially those which have been ablaze this summer – in all corners of Europe, but essentially the countries of the south – to understand why prevention should not be included in this regulation. The fact that it has been introduced on an equal footing is a cause of satisfaction for us and I would essentially like to thank the Commission, the Commissioner and Marie Claude Blin, for their efforts in reaching this agreement; I would also like to thank the Council, which has worked hard so that we may reach this agreement, as well as all the shadow rapporteurs from all the political groups, who have moved forward so that this agreement would be possible at second reading and so that we would resolve an issue which presented us with a serious problem: combating fires. IN THE CHAIR: MR DIMITRAKOPOULOSVice-President

Political group: PPE-DE