Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-09-02-Speech-1-102"
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"en.20020902.8.1-102"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, first of all I should like to congratulate Mr Stevenson on his report, which was adopted by a majority in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
Since the ban on meat-and-bone meal, which lay at the root of the mad cow crisis, the Community shortfall of protein-based feed for livestock has grown worse. As some of my fellow Members have said, it has increased by 23%. Faced with this deficit, the only solution that the European Commission has proposed is to increase imports of these protein crops, an increase that will grow worse after the new Member States have joined the Union.
The Community’s Executive has rejected the memorandum presented during the recent Spanish Presidency and supported by many Member States, in favour of promoting these crops in the European Union, despite the fact that we are increasingly dependent on soya from the United States. This dependence could, furthermore, increase, following the increase in aid granted by that country under its new agricultural law.
Whilst the United States is quite unabashed about increasing its annual aid to soya producers by USD three million, the European Union is not only reducing its aid to oilseed crops, but is also putting its market at the service of imports from these third countries.
Apart from commercial reasons, however – which the European Commission wishes to bandy around in order to justify its refusal to re-establish specific aid for oilseed crops – there is no reason not to support other crops with a protein content higher even than that of oilseed crops, such as dry fodder, in the case of which production quotas cannot match demand.
In order to address protein supply needs, there are also other crops, such as protein and leguminous crops – such as kidney beans, beans and sweet lupins, which have already been mentioned – which are not subject to any type of WTO restriction and which we could also include.
It should not be forgotten, furthermore, that the European Union has given a commitment to reducing CO2 emissions, and that one possible approach is to promote the production of biofuels, which is another reason why the European Parliament should support the report by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development in favour of promoting these crops and of reducing, if not eliminating, these external dependencies, which can cause so many problems with regard to the degree of supply and the quality and safety monitoring of these crops under our rules.
Lastly, a comment: Mr Commissioner, if we do not maintain our production and supply capacity, what will become of our ability to negotiate and defend our interests in international forums?"@en1
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