Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-05-15-Speech-1-045"
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"en.20000515.3.1-045"2
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".
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I hope that you had a wonderful weekend and that you were able to relax somewhere in Europe in our fantastically beautiful – and, above all, undamaged – agricultural landscape, which is responsibly and lovingly tended by our farmers. It is in this spirit of optimism that we can begin this debate on our report on the prices for agricultural products in 2000/2001.
I started the report by reminding you of the beauty of the European agricultural landscape. I should like to finish with the sentence: ‘Food and drink hold body and soul together’. Let us not forget this, even in our political considerations and decisions!
In the past, this report was always the subject of fierce debates on farm incomes. The decisions made under Agenda 2000 established many principles, not necessarily always for the best as far as agriculture is concerned. This Commission proposal, too, contains a series of points which will again lead to a reduction in farmers’ incomes. In my report I make my opposition to this absolutely clear.
The Commission is proposing to further reduce the additional charges on the intervention prices for cereals in two stages and then to fix them. The Commission’s proposal to reduce the monthly increments would mean another substantial deterioration in farm incomes. In this context, we also reject the Commission’s plan to make the intervention criteria stricter. If the minimum moisture content threshold were lowered this would reduce the compass of the intervention safety net and increase the proportion of the cereal crop which is, in principle, excluded from intervention.
A third point – and here, judging by recent press releases, the Council appears to be coming round to the Agriculture Committee’s point of view – relates to Mrs Schreyer’s proposal to cut the agriculture budget by EUR 300 million per year in favour of the EU's foreign policy, despite the fact that additional money has still not been made available to remedy the extensive forest damage. At this stage I should like to state clearly once again that however important the EU's commitment to the Balkans is, the agriculture budget does not constitute an inexhaustible supply of funds which we can use to finance all our other desirable policies. The agriculture budget is neither a self-service shop nor a high-yielding dairy cow. Mrs Schreyer says that, of course, the EUR 300 million will not come out of direct support, but that is irrelevant because in the second pillar of agricultural policy too – that is, promoting the development of rural areas and stewardship of the countryside – each and every euro is necessary and well-spent. Our farmers are already experiencing uncertainty of a kind which ought to make us stop and think.
Structural change is not, in itself, a bad thing; it is much more the consequence of a huge improvement in training and therefore in knowledge, skills and technology. But if an increasing number of farms are going out of business, farms which we have classified as viable from a political point of view, and if farmers are complaining about their workload, which is becoming unbearable, then something is wrong, and perhaps something is also wrong with our policy.
It is our job to put in place tangible and enduringly reliable or – with your permission I will borrow a word from our definition of modern land management – sustainable framework conditions and not to turn the screws – including the tiny ones – even further. After all, we have already tightened the large ones as far as they will go.
We need to change fundamental aspects of our agriculture policy for the long term! We need a new vision for our farmers which is forward-looking and geared towards future needs.
At this point I should like to ask the Commission whether, and to what extent, it is prepared to accept the amendments we adopted unanimously in committee. I am obviously asking because there is the possibility of referring this back to the committee if the Commission is not prepared to take on board points which are important to Parliament. I refer in particular to the moisture content of cereals and the monthly increments.
On the other hand, I recognise that the budget year begins on 1 July and that a referral back to the committee might mean that the Council would not be able to decide in time, which would again be disadvantageous for agriculture. That is what I want to prevent at all costs."@en1
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