Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-09-06-Speech-4-232"
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. The Commission has always seen hill and mountain farming as a very important and highly interesting subject. I should like to thank the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and, more importantly, the rapporteur, Mr Ebner, for this own initiative report on 25 years’ application of Community legislation for hill and mountain farming.
The same rules apply to rural development and the common organisations of the market. These too take account of the specific nature of extensive farming, especially in mountain regions, either through specific, customised measures such as beef extensification premiums or premiums for sheepmeat or goatmeat production or by giving the Member States additional room to manoeuvre by allowing them to give special support to regions of their choice.
The Commission will address special treatment for farmers in mountain regions in relation to milk quotas, as proposed in the report, as part of its midterm review. Finally, we should not forget, with reference to the Structural Funds, that 95% of mountain regions come under Objective 1 or Objective 2. These mountain regions can all apply under current support rules and the Member States can tailor the measures needed to individual demands, be it in relation to transport or telecommunications networks, basic public services or support for economic activities. In principle, this can be complemented by national aid, as Mr Caveri mentioned. Here too, however, the golden rule is that we continue to require notification a) because this gives regions the security of knowing that their measures will be seen to be compatible with EU law and b) because we must not allow unfair competition between individual regions.
I cannot address all the suggestions in the report, but I hope that the seminar organised by the Commission to coincide with the International Year of Mountains will give plenty of opportunity to come back to these suggestions. In the meantime, the Commission will exercise its powers and right of initiative in order to examine the conclusions of the report in greater detail and continue the dialogue started today. I am positive that this will allow us to successfully raise the profile of mountain regions and highlight their importance to Europe.
Starting with the 1998 Santini report on a new strategy for hill and mountain farming and with the International Year of Mountains coming up next year, the Ebner report highlights the importance of mountain regions to the European Union. In particular, it stresses the importance of environmental protection and the need to maintain natural beauty spots, produce quality products and urgently maintain the cultural heritage. It also points out that the viability of the countryside in mountain regions goes far beyond agriculture and depends on a multitude of factors.
It is clear from this starting premise that the same questions preoccupy us. Multifunctionality is also the cornerstone of our new rural development policy. It aims to promote farming in which all functions and services are recognised, every function which farmers offer our society.
This is an integral part of the European farming model and I can assure you, in response to a number of concerns expressed in the report, that the Commission will stand squarely behind the need to take account of this aspect during trade negotiations at the World Trade Association.
With enlargement impending, the report calls on the Commission to create a global strategy for mountain regions and hill and mountain farming both in the Member States and in the candidate countries. On this point, I must say, the Commission approach differs from the approach taken in the report. May I remind you that the new rural development policy only started up last year. We placed subsidiarity right at the forefront of this new policy, so that the Member States could set their own priorities and include what they consider are the most suitable measures for making the best of their regions and dealing with local drawbacks or difficulties in their rural development plans or Structural Fund planning documents.
This decentralised approach, which also applies to the SAPARD programmes, means that the rural development programme can be properly tailored to mountain regions and can accommodate the differences between them. For example, the Pyrenees need different concepts from the Alps. This fosters sustainable development which takes account both of socio-economic problems and the environmental challenges facing each of these regions. Instead of laying down central guidelines, as was recently the case, we should be discussing how best to implement the mountain region policy in detail not just with all the Union institutions and bodies, the Member States, the regions and the local authorities but also with our economic and social partners, non-governmental organisations and scientific circles.
I should like to point out
that the Commission accepted the second report on economic and social cohesion on 31 January this year. This report raises the question of setting priorities for the balanced and sustained development of the regions in an enlarged Union and the question of covering increased cohesion requirements, to mention just two, and calls for discussion on the subject. This report offers numerous opportunities to develop regions lagging behind.
The main aim of the Commission's contribution to the International Year of Mountains, therefore, is to advertise our current development mechanisms more widely. The Commission will organise a seminar in the second half of the year at Commissioner Barnier's and my initiative, the purpose of which will be to present and advertise the opportunities which Community policy offers mountain regions. You and any other interested parties are also invited to attend.
To come back to the report, I should like to emphasise that it is already possible as the law now stands to provide targeted support for hill and mountain farming through compensatory payments, which form and shall continue to form our basic support for mountain regions, and through environmental measures, through aid for forestry, through processing aid and marketing aid or through diversification aid, for example in the tourism sector. I should also like to remind you, Mrs Rojo, that the instructions for drawing up rural development programmes state that express reference must be made to programmes specifically for women and that each of the rural development programmes must contain a chapter describing specific help for women."@en1
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