Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-11-13-Speech-2-357"
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"en.20011113.14.2-357"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to congratulate both the committee responsible and Mrs Flemming for the work they have done.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development welcomes the communication from the Commission. A suitable pricing policy for irrigation water will play a fundamental role in encouraging more efficient and sustainable use of water in agriculture, its largest consumer, and will free up resources for other uses, thereby reducing environmental pressures.
The analysis of the pricing of irrigation water is complex, due to the wide range of agricultural uses in the European Union and also regional differences in the need and availability of water for agricultural usage. Water is, essentially, the very backbone of the agricultural community in the Mediterranean regions. Without water, nothing grows, apart from the controversial almond trees.
The pricing policy should be heterogeneous, taking into account the ‘polluter pays’ principle, as well as the social, environmental, economic, geographical and climatic variations in regions that no doubt will be the most affected by this pricing policy.
The financial, environmental and resource costs of irrigation farming require differential treatment if gradual-recovery objectives are to be achieved. For this reason, the introduction of this policy should be progressive, transparent and must be adapted to local requirements. In this way, information to irrigation farmers and the adaptation and optimisation of infrastructures and irrigation techniques should be applied in parallel so that farmers can accept this policy.
Ladies and gentlemen, in its current form the CAP does not help to achieve the objectives set out in the framework directive, which means we must seek coherence between these two policies in order to guarantee the protection of European agriculture’s functional model.
Today, in Europe, water is a factor for cohesion between countries. The revision of Agenda 2000 on the development of agri-environmental measures should include the objectives of water policies. This will require the revision of certain types of aid, the application of eco-conditionality and the recognition of the right to adequate compensation for more vulnerable farmers, such as those who work on family holdings, with the aim of promoting the sustainable use of water and an integrated rural development."@en1
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