European Parliament resolution on the floods in France
Date: 2001-05-17
Institutions: European Parliament
Subjects: France, Structural Funds, climate change, emergency aid, financial aid, flood, natural disaster

C 34 E/384

Official Journal of the European Communities

EN

7.2.2002

Thursday 17 May 2001

Calls for international arrest warrants to be issued against the organisers of and participants in these

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networks specialising in child trafficking;

5. Welcomes the initiative of Britain, Ghana and C(cid:244)te d(cid:146)Ivoire in setting up a task force to look into the
issue of forced labour in West African cocoa production; calls on all countries in West and Central Africa
to look into the issue of trafficking and maltreatment of children in order to step up the fight against such
practices;

Calls on the Council to help countries involved in child trafficking fight against this phenomenon

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and assist with the organisation of rehabilitation programmes for rescued or escaped child slaves;

Calls on the Council to support fully the (cid:145)Say Yes for Children(cid:146) campaign that strives to protect and

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improve the lives of children;

Calls on the Council to draw attention to this issue and to play a leading role in the preparation of

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and during the special session of the UN General Assembly on children to be held next September;

Issues an appeal to the United Nations Conference on LDCs in Brussels to take measures to combat

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child labour;

Calls on the Commission to put forward proposals designed to foster the rural development of

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African countries in such a way as to put an end to this phenomenon;

Calls for products to be labelled in such a way that those manufactured in an ethically sound

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manner can be quickly identified;

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Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, UNICEF, the co-
presidents of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly, the OAU and in particular the authorities of Benin
and the governments of the countries of West and Central Africa.

17. Floods in France

B5-0382, 0383, 0390, 0391 and 0392/2001

European Parliament resolution on the floods in France

The European Parliament,

A. having regard to the severe climatic conditions and the torrential rain which has fallen in France, in
particular the Somme region, where the rainfall was three times the normal level between October
2000 and April 2001,

B. whereas dozens of communes were submerged and thousands of people evacuated,

C. having regard to the seriousness of the damage caused to infrastructure, crops and housing, currently

totalling hundreds of millions of euros,

D. whereas the damage directly affects families and their property, but also businesses (craftsmen, SMEs,

industries and farmers) and the countryside,

E.

concerned at the frequency of climatic disasters, which may be linked to the climate changes caused
by pollution,

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Expresses its feelings of solidarity with all the people affected;

2. Welcomes the show of solidarity and the efforts made to assist the victims of the floods, especially
on the part of the public authorities, politicians, public services, firemen, soldiers and volunteers;

7.2.2002

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 34 E/385

Thursday 17 May 2001

3. Welcomes the Commission(cid:146)s undertaking to introduce flexible measures for farmers, especially as
regards sowing;

Calls on the Commission to grant, in agreement with the French Government and the local auth-
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orities, exceptional financial aid to supplement the appropriations earmarked by the French authorities to
meet the urgent needs of the communities hardest hit, to restore the destroyed infrastructure and help to
relaunch economic activity;

Calls on the Commission, therefore, to speed up the payment of the appropriations already pro-
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grammed under the Structural Funds and to submit to the Council a proposal for a decision to release
(cid:145)Community aid for the reconstruction of disaster areas(cid:146);

Calls for the reinstatement of the budget line devoted to emergency aid in the event of natural

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disasters in the EU;

Calls on the Commission to propose exceptional modifications to the zoning of the flooded regions

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in the context of the Structural Funds;

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Calls on the Member States to reverse the current trend of destroying ecosystems and to preserve
them, in particular watercourses, irrigation systems, dikes and dams; also stresses the need to avoid in the
future the installing of infrastructure and the building of houses in regions at risk from the hydrogeological
point of view;

9. Welcomes the creation of Community instruments aimed at coordinating, at European level, the
various systems of civil protection, so that they are made more easily available and useable in the event
of natural disasters;

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Notes that the planet is currently experiencing the effects of climate change and that urgent
measures must be taken at international, national and local level to combat the effects of this phenom-
enon; calls on the Member States, in collaboration with the Commission, to make every effort to try, in the
light of the Conference of the Parties to be held in Bonn in July 2001, to comply with the Kyoto commit-
ments, in strict application of the principle of reciprocity between all the parties;

Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the French govern-

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ment and parliament, regional and general councillors and the municipalities concerned.

18. Mutual recognition of final decisions in criminal matters

A5-0145/2001

European Parliament resolution on the Commission communication to the Council and the Euro-
pean Parliament on the mutual recognition of final decisions in criminal matters (COM(2000) 495
(cid:129) C5-0631/2000 (cid:129) 2000/2295(COS))

The European Parliament,

(cid:129) having regard to the Commission communication (COM(2000) 495 (cid:129) C5-0631/2000),

(cid:129) having regard to Article 31 of the Treaty on European Union,

(cid:129) having regard to the conclusions of the Cardiff European Council of 15 and 16 June 1998 requesting
the Council to identify the scope for applying the principle of mutual recognition of decisions,

(cid:129) having regard to point 45(f) of the Council and Commission Action Plan of 3 December 1998, which
asks for the initiation of a process with a view to implementing this principle within two years of the
entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam,