European Parliament resolution on the drought in Spain
Date: 2005-05-12
Institutions: European Parliament
Subjects: EU policy, Spain, aid to agriculture, common agricultural policy, common organisation of markets, drought, environmental policy, fund (EU)

C 92 E/414

Official Journal of the European Union

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20.4.2006

Thursday 12 May 2005

Commends the efforts of the ASEAN parliamentarians to exercise their influence with their respective

17.
governments so as to bring about change for the better in Burma;

18.

Urges the ASEAN states to reconsider the assumption that Burma should chair ASEAN in 2006;

19.
Calls on the UN Security Council to address the situation in Burma as a matter of urgency and to
empower the UN Secretary-General and his Special Envoy to mediate in Burma in order to bring about
national reconciliation and a transition to democracy;

20.
Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the governments of
the ASEAN and ASEM member states, the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus, Aung San Suu Kyi,
the NLD, the SPDC, the UN Secretary-General, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN
Human Rights Special Rapporteur for Burma.

P6_TA(2005)0187

Drought in Spain

European Parliament resolution on the drought in Spain

The European Parliament,

— having regard to Articles 2 and 6 of the EC Treaty, under which environmental protection requirements
must be integrated into Community policies in various areas, with a view to fostering environmentally
sustainable economic development,

— having regard to Article 174 of the EC Treaty,

— having regard to the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
of 11 December 1997 and the Community's approval of the Kyoto Protocol by means of the Council
Decision of 25 April 2002 (1),

— having regard to Commission report No 21553 of March 2005 on ‘Climate change and the European

water dimension’,

— having regard to Rule 103(4) of its Rules of Procedure,

A. whereas southern Europe, and particularly the Iberian Peninsula, has suffered many severe droughts and
frosts which have led to the destruction of numerous crops including fruit trees, olive groves, herba-
ceous plants and horticultural products and flowers, as well as causing substantial losses to stockbreed-
ing and the processing industry,

B. whereas the period from November 2004 to March 2005 was the driest Spain had seen since 1947, and
as at 31 March 2005 the volume of water accumulated in the previous seven months was 37 % less
than the normal average for the same period; whereas water reserves in Spain are at just 60 % of their
normal capacity,

C. whereas the period from January to March 2005 witnessed the lowest temperatures of frost recorded in
Spain in 20 years, with the destruction of millions of olive trees and fruit trees, as well as major losses
in other agricultural sectors,

D. whereas after the frost had ended the drought persisted in Spain and this extreme drought has resulted
in an alarming rise in the risk of forest fires; whereas in some autonomous communities the fire-risk
level is fast approaching the maximum and high temperatures and no rain are forecast for the coming
months,

(1) OJ L 130, 15.5.2002, p. 1.

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Official Journal of the European Union

C 92 E/415

Thursday 12 May 2005

E. whereas the losses to producers will, by the next harvest period, stand at more than EUR 2 billion, and
the consequences of the frost will continue for several years for many farmers who will not be able to
restore their production levels in the short term, with particularly severe effects on olive cultivation
areas, which will need drastic measures including slashing back or grubbing up young plantations, and
also on the cultivation of fruit trees,

F. whereas the olive sector has suffered considerable losses in production capacity and next season's har-

vest is likely to be dramatically reduced in many regions,

G. whereas it is necessary to make use of the flexibility provided for in the common organisation of the

market in fruit and vegetables in order to tackle cases of ‘force majeure’,

H. whereas frost and drought have the effect of worsening the losses incurred by stockbreeders in Spain
from the immobilisation of livestock introduced to prevent the spread of ‘blue tongue’ disease; whereas
the fuel crisis is also increasing farmers' costs,

I. whereas the consequences of this climatic disaster are affecting numerous local economies, reaching
record dimensions with very serious effects in terms of temporary employment, especially for immi-
grants at a time when a major regularisation is taking place,

J. whereas in its report No 2 of 2004 on the impact of climate change in Europe the European Environ-
ment Agency admits that global warming is having more serious consequences in southern Europe,
with potentially severe repercussions for Spain in terms of increased drought, more forest fires and
greater risks to human health,

K. whereas the Brussels European Council of 22 and 23 March 2005 agreed to a new benchmark for

international efforts to combat climate change,

Expresses its solidarity with farmers and stockbreeders in Spain and in the Iberian peninsula as a

1.
whole, in view of the generally unfavourable climatic conditions they are facing;

2. Welcomes the Commission's Communication on risk and crisis management in agriculture (COM
(2005)0074), and encourages the Commission and Council to take urgent action in response to it so as to
establish, as swiftly as possible, an effective Community protection system to safeguard European farmers
against risks and crises such as those arising from the current drought in Portugal and Spain;

3.
Calls, in this connection, for a swifter launch of the pilot project agreed in the 2005 budget procedure
for establishing a Community insurance regime or compensation mechanism in case of natural disasters that
guarantees a minimum income for farmers;

4.
Calls on the Commission to release resources from the EU Solidarity Fund with a view to alleviating
the damage caused to the productive capacity of whole regions, given that the frost and drought have
affected living conditions and economic stability in numerous areas;

5.
Calls once again on the Council and the Commission to review the eligibility criteria and the measures
that may be funded under the Solidarity Fund, so as to enable the fund to be used in response to situations
of this kind, in which adverse weather conditions have a serious impact on rural communities and favours
extending the eligibility criteria for Solidarity Fund aid in case of climatic disasters under the financial
perspective for 2007-2013;

Calls on the Commission to improve the eligibility conditions for aid under the common agricultural

6.
policy, by means of the following measures:

— greater flexibility in the set-aside regime,

— authorisation of grazing on set-aside land,

C 92 E/416

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Thursday 12 May 2005

— exemption from the obligation to achieve flowering in order to receive Community aid for herbaceous

crops,

— exemption from the general obligation regarding grain legume use in order to receive aid and the

possibility of direct use of the arable land concerned for grazing,

— greater mobilisation of intervention cereals in order to meet livestock's feeding needs,
— bringing CAP aids forward to September;

Asks, in the framework of the common organisation of the market in fruit and vegetables, for appli-
7.
cation to the operational programmes for 2006 of Article 4(4) of Commission Regulation (EC) No 1433/
2003 of 11 August 2003 (1) in order to ensure a minimum value for marketable production of 65 % of the
value for the earlier reference period, and that in the context of the forthcoming reforms of the COMs as
much flexibility as possible be introduced into the rules applicable in the event of climate disasters; also asks
that in the lemon sector the sanctions for failing to observe a contract with the processing sector be
eliminated, since the frosts are a case of force majeure and must be recognised as such;

8.
Alerts the Council and the Commission to the immediate need for funding to be made available and
resources marshalled so as to ensure that effective preventive action may be taken against the escalation of
forest fires that is another serious consequence of the lack of rain; calls for more resources for combating
forest fires and for a properly organised Community strategy for dealing with a problem which is being
made worse by the drought;

9.
Urges the Commission carefully to study the phenomenon of drought with a view to determining its
periodicity or cyclical nature and whether it is a further indicator of the effects of climate change, and to
assess its impact on the increase in erosion and desertification; similarly, in the connection with the policy
to combat the effects of climate change, calls for the use of biofuels to be encouraged in order to reduce the
European Union's high dependency on oil;

10. Welcomes the commitments made at the abovementioned Brussels European Council to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions by 30 % compared to their 1990 levels by 2020 and to keep the maximum
increase in global temperatures to no more than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels;

Calls on the Commission to support measures,

11.
support of the more rational use of water, in particular in southern Europe;

including measures to raise public awareness,

in

12.
Notes with interest the recent abovementioned Commission report on the global phenomenon of
climate change and its direct effect on ecosystems and the water cycle, together with the measures put
forward with a view to facilitating management by those responsible for water policy at EU level;

13.

Urges the Commission to give thought to the setting up of a European drought monitoring centre;

Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council and the Commission, the Spanish

14.
Government and the regional and local authorities of the areas affected.

(1) OJ L 203, 12.8.2003, p. 25.