William (The Earl of) Dartmouth, on behalf of the EFDD Group. – Mr President, fires happen in particular places. Countries do not catch fire, nor even do regions. It is houses that catch fire, trees catch fire, woods catch fire, villages, even whole communities can get caught in fires, but it is all essentially local. The best approach to help put fires out and help cope with the consequences of fires is to do it locally. Victims of fires need people on the spot, and they and we need resources applied in exactly the right way at the right time and in the right place, that is to say locally.

Therefore, it follows that fires are the ultimate example in which to apply subsidiarity. Of course, neighbours must help out, and of course, all donations are welcome and all decent people will indeed help. But this is yet another and regrettable example of the EU Commission thinking that big is best. This is incorrect. It is local that is best – and more than that, micro is magic. We can help people best – individuals, communities and people caught in the middle – locally. What we do not need is the slow-moving, Kafkaesque EU bureaucracy which has proven itself over and over again to be dysfunctional and unhelpful.

To depart for my prepared text: there was a fire earlier today in the Hemicycle – a fire of democracy. It is not often that I agree with a Member of GUE/NGL, but the gentleman was right. It was profoundly undemocratic for a member of the Commission – the executive – to intervene directly in a parliamentary debate. This was fire of democracy, and colleagues should consider that a Parliament should not accept intervention in this way, from a member of the executive.

(The speaker agreed to take a blue-card question under Rule 162(8))