Mr President, honourable Members, large-scale disasters such as that which struck a month ago are indeed ill winds of sadness, anxiety and pain but they often also bring some good. That good may be that people feel closer, feel drawn together and that we are all pulling in the same direction. Cooperation experienced in a European context does more in hard times than endless lofty speeches and we have seen here – and my congratulations first and foremost to the Commission on how it has kicked into action – that the European Union, which is often perceived as inflexible, is keen to show how flexible it can be by earmarking Structural Fund resources, by paying out aid to farmers, by implementing rules for funds available from Europe, by applying a flexible aid regime, i.e. where funds are not channelled directly, and by being flexible in its competition requirements. And this sends out a good message, a message that, when it has to, Europe can get moving. We have our work cut out for us. The Council and Parliament now need to hand out fast, solid aid. Fast aid because the dikes which have been inundated will not hold up forever. Help is needed. And solid aid because permanent help is needed and, may I say here loud and clear, that the proposed aid fund, which has our full and unwavering support, is clearly not designed to be a quick fix for a few months or a one-off incident. Anyone who has witnessed how two countries which, economically, are usually among the strongest in Europe, have received expressions of solidarity from countries which are not among the strongest will never again be able to refuse these regions help if disaster threatens in the future. I say that in the light of what we have done in the budget in previous years. Unfortunately, there was never enough money available to really be able to help. Basically, all we did was to raise hopes and then dash them again. This must not happen with the aid fund and we shall need to act accordingly. We need, however, to address a number of issues which go beyond these emergency measures. We need to deal with these issues in the Committee on Budgets and we shall be looking here for close contact and close cooperation with the Commission and the Council in order to get things moving as quickly as possible. But we also need to take account in our calculations of experience in formulating policies in other areas. Satellite data on flood management need to be included in the framework research programme, as does seismic research, because we are not just talking water here, we are also talking earthquakes – think of the Azores. We need to think about how to impose mandatory specifications to ensure buildings are stable. We also need to think very carefully about straightening rivers and about flood plains. And urgent help is needed. In the medium term, we need to create a solid basis for future help from the European Union – including financial help – and take preventive measures across the whole of the political spectrum which concerns us. Only then will help be credible, because only then will people take us seriously and, even then, we must not promise more than we can deliver. I should like to thank everyone who has helped and I trust we shall pull together over the coming weeks and months in order to carry out the work in hand. (Applause)

Political group: PSE