B4-0099, 0108, 0118, 0143 and 0147/94

Resolution on forest fires in the southern EU countries

The European Parliament,

A.whereas forests play a decisive role in maintaining basic ecological balances throughout Europe; whereas they represent a source of wealth and key development for many regions and whereas, therefore, their permanent protection, conservation and management must be considered a priority,

B.whereas during the summer of 1994 the countries of Southern Europe, including the Canary Islands, have once again been hit by fires, which have devastated vast areas of forests and posed an immediate threat to residential areas,

C.whereas the size of the area devastated by forest fires in the Community continues to reach alarming proportions since it is significantly larger than the area which is annually reafforested, despite the fact that fire-fighting techniques have improved and that the Member States allocate ever-greater resources to combating this scourge,

D.whereas the effects of the forest fires and the current drought, together with the expected torrential rainfall affecting southern Europe, are decisive factors in the desertification process from which that part of Europe suffers,

E.whereas forest fires must be prevented from jeopardizing or, worse still, destroying the results of current or planned programmes and investment connected with Community Support Frameworks and CAP accompanying measures,

F.whereas a priority objective must be the adoption of a model of forestry development that involves the rural population to a greater extent in the tasks of conserving and managing forests;

G.whereas the manner in which the fires originated frequently suggests that they were started intentionally, arson being one form of present-day crime in certain countries of the European Union,

H.whereas the countries involved have proved incapable of carrying out the necessary measures to prevent, extinguish and put an end to these fires;

I.whereas Community measures are generally inadequate and incapable of providing effective means of intervention;

1.Expresses its full sympathy with those persons affected and calls on the Commission to provide urgent financial aid to the areas most severely affected, which should receive priority under reafforestation programmes;

2.Calls on the Commission to submit to it within the very near future an assessment of the situation brought about by the forest fires which broke out during the summers of 1993 and 1994, together with an evaluation of the measures adopted in each Member State and at Community level, including those of an administrative, civilian or penal nature;

3.Calls on the Commission to provide special emergency aid to the areas which are worst hit;

4.Calls on the Commission and the Council to supplement and improve existing regulations with additional budgetary funds;

5.Calls on the Commission to draw up a comprehensive prevention strategy, to include vocational training, and undertake to ensure better coordination and collaboration among the prevention and fire-fighting measures carried out in the Member States, including the pooling of resources and equipment;

6.Calls on the Commission to include in the Social Fund a training programme aimed at local officials and focusing on fire-fighting methods and on practical information and guidelines to be issued to the general public in order to prevent the loss of human life;

7.Calls on the Commission to draw up a global policy of action in the forestry sector, covering both measures taken in the context of the common agricultural policy and environmental policy and judicious reafforestation, to ensure that the environment is replenished with indigenous species;

8.Reiterates the need for the Commission to set up a European Centre to study new techniques for the prevention and control of forest fires in the Mediterranean areas;

9.Calls on the Commission to set up and bring into service a Community fleet of special fire-fighting aircraft;

10.Urges the Commission to call on the Member States to make criminal sanctions more severe, for example by establishing specific types of offences, by the institution of legal proceedings by parties suffering fire damage, the establishment of registers of forest areas destroyed by fire together with a 20-year land-use restriction and a construction ban;

11.Calls on the Commission to carry out a systematic investigation of the utilization within the European Union of appropriations earmarked for fire protection purposes;

12.Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Commission, the Council, the governments of the Member States and the authorities of the areas affected.