Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-09-02-Speech-1-092"
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"en.20020902.8.1-092"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I congratulate Mr Stevenson on the report he has presented and which deserves our support. As the document we are now debating states, the European Union’s current rate of self-sufficiency in vegetable proteins has fallen to below 23%, as other Members have already said and which becomes all the more serious when you realise that, at world level, plant protein production has increased by 60% in the last fifteen years and is largely concentrated in three countries.
It is, therefore, hard to understand the Commission position of insisting on depending almost solely on the world market, with the aggravating circumstance that this supply is concentrated in three countries, and I would remind you that one of these is the United States of America. I would also take this opportunity to remind you of that country’s agricultural policy, which is not only in competition with the European Union but which is also protectionist. This fact puts the European Union in an extremely vulnerable position and is not a sustainable response to our needs in terms of plant proteins, as the rapporteur points out in his report.
It is, therefore, important that we encourage the development of plant protein production in the European Union, which will help to make us less dependent on imports and to ensure the multifunctionality of Community agriculture, introducing other species and varieties of grain legumes which have inexplicably been excluded from Community support and from the improvement plans. I would remind you of yellow lupin and other species that have traditionally been used for animal feed, particularly in the Mediterranean countries, and which have not benefited from Community support.
Hence the importance of granting rotational aid to farmers to encourage the production
of plant proteins in the cereal crop cycle, using fallow land, as we have advocated in other reports, and also the need to terminate the Blair House agreements, or, at the very least renegotiate them. It is hard to understand why no effort has yet been made to renegotiate them, in the aim of terminating them, thereby making greater direct aid possible for the protection of proteins in the European Union.
We believe it is equally important for the Commission to approve the additional aid for plant proteins – beans, peas and lupins – not covered by the Blair House agreements and we support the terms referred to in the report by the our rapporteur. We hope, then, that the Commission will take account of these proposals, whilst respecting the principle of monitoring production and the positive effects of these, in both the socio-economic and the environmental fields. I would also remind you that now, when it comes to revising the CAP, neither this report nor the proposals that will surely be approved here in the European Parliament must be forgotten."@en1
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