mr president i wanted to explain why my group and i abstained on the vote on the eu rapid response capability
the multiplication of major disasters outside the eu in recent years has led to increased calls to improve the effectiveness of the eu disaster response capacity
while i can agree with many of the excellent points raised in this report i cannot support the call for the establishment of a new eu civil protection force
while i support calls for the eu to coordinate its response to humanitarian catastrophes with the wider development community i can only support such developments when they take place within already existing mechanisms such as the community's civil protection mechanism
while it is extremely important that the eu responds effectively to humanitarian catastrophes it is equally important that we are not the only ones responding
in addition to focusing our attention on improving the eu's response we must also focus on strengthening the capacity of developing countries and regions and sub-regional capacity in the affected area so that we do this together as an international community
otherwise we will be doing all the hard work and they will be doing nothing
