Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-11-06-Speech-3-104"
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"en.20021106.8.3-104"2
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"Mr President, first of all I would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to give an account to the European Parliament of the Council’s work on the mid-term review.
I would like to comment on the more specific market sectors. We had a full debate on the main crops at the Council session in September and, although the Commission’s overall direction was able to be supported to a certain extent, there were very clear specific proposals which met with substantial opposition. Various groups of delegations thus expressed strong arguments against a reduction in the intervention price for grain, removal of the monthly grain supplement, abolition of the intervention scheme as far as rye is concerned, the proposed changes to the arrangements for durum wheat and the proposed environmentally-friendly agricultural set-aside, as well as the Commission’s proposed adjustment of subsidies for energy crops.
The Commission’s communication was also accompanied by detailed reports on rice, nuts and milk. The Council again had a full debate on these areas at its October meeting. With regard to rice and nuts, opinions were clearly divided along the obvious lines of whether or not one was a producer of the products discussed. As far as rice is concerned, however, there was initially broad agreement on the need for change in the sector – the adoption of the ‘Everything But Arms’ initiative makes this inevitable. However, a number of ministers from producer countries expressed dissatisfaction with the specific measures proposed by the Commission, while the non-producer countries regarded the Commission’s proposal as a step in the right direction.
With regard to milk, the Commission presented four options for the dairy sector for the period 2008-2015. The options were discussed with the result that it is unlikely that any of them – apart from option 3, i.e. that concerning a and c quotas – can be considered due to the uncertainty regarding compatibility with the WTO rules. In view of this it was deemed appropriate to consider the situation further.
Where nuts are concerned, the producer countries clearly expressed a need for special subsidies in this sector.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Commission’s initiative to strengthen rural policy is welcomed by the Member States. As I have mentioned previously, however, there is no agreement on the choice of tools for achieving this objective and the debate in the Council revealed divergent attitudes on matters such as the choice of instruments and distribution of the resources. Nonetheless, the debate was extremely positive in the sense that there is broad agreement that something must be done in this area, including the fact that there is a great need for simplification of the arrangements, and the delegations have a number of ideas for improvements and for new measures in the slightly longer term.
With regard to the farm audit, many delegations have generally expressed great interest in the Commission’s ideas, again in principle. The majority of the delegations however feel that in the first instance it should be a voluntary system that is attractive to farmers, so that we can get as many as possible to use the scheme.
We in the Council have thoroughly examined the Commission’s communication on the mid-term review. The delegations have been given opportunity to ask questions, make comments, contribute new ideas, support or criticise all aspects of the Commission’s communication and the reports accompanying the communication. In the light of this the Commission now has a solid basis for considering the Member States’ wishes as regards future development of the common agricultural policy and also for drawing the necessary conclusions.
As agreed in Agenda 2000, on 10 July this year the Commission submitted the mid-term review of the common agricultural policy. One of the main priorities for the Danish Presidency has been to ensure as much progress as possible in the discussions concerning the mid-term review of the common agricultural policy. Commissioner Fischler presented his discussion paper on the future development of the common agricultural policy at a Council meeting on 15 July. On this occasion, there was an open debate in the Council, in which the Member States had opportunity to make known their immediate opinions on the Commission’s thoughts. The Danish Presidency has had discussion of the mid-term review on the agenda of all the Council sessions in July, September and October, and the Council has thus had a thorough debate on the main topics in the Commission’s discussion paper. The paper has also been discussed within the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and in a number of relevant working groups. The conclusions of the Brussels Summit emphasised, as the Commissioner mentioned in his contribution, that this was without prejudice to future decisions on the common agricultural policy and the funding of the EU after 2006, nor to any result following the implementation of paragraph 22 of the conclusions of the Berlin agenda, that is, Agenda 2000, nor to the international commitments entered into by the EU
in the launching of the Doha Development Round. In other words, the mid-term review continues directly as part of Agenda 2000.
I would like to emphasise that, like the European Parliament and other institutions, we knew from the start that our discussions on the discussion paper were to form a basis for the Commission’s submission of legal proposals at a later point in time. The Presidency has therefore organised general discussions at which ministers were given opportunity to express their various attitudes to all aspects of the Commission’s communication.
Before I start my review I would like to thank the European Parliament for its discussion of the matter. We look forward to Parliament’s final decision tomorrow, and it is obvious that the decision will be extremely important and an important contribution to the debate. There is no reason to hide the fact that the ministers’ reactions to the mid-term review have been divergent from the start, with regard to both the timing and the framework, and of course also as regards the content. In general, however, as Chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and Fisheries I have been able to establish that there is broad agreement on the fact that rural policy should be strengthened and that greater emphasis should be placed on food safety, on protection of the environment and on animal welfare.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I will now contribute some comments on the main elements of the Commission’s communication in the light of the discussions that we have had in the Council.
The mid-term review contains two entirely fundamental horizontal aspects, namely the decoupling of direct subsidies and dynamic modulation. The Commission’s ideas in this area have been more wide-ranging than has been seen previously. The Council held its first overall discussion of these aspects in July and has yet to hold more technical discussions regarding the individual elements.
As far as decoupling is concerned, I can say that the delegations have expressed a great need for further information from the Commission in the form of impact assessments of the financial, social and regional effects of the proposal before a final position can be taken. On the other hand, some delegations support the fundamental principle of decoupling. They believe that it will allow farmers to focus on products that give them the best return on sales without having to keep an eye on the size of the subsidies given to the various products. At the same time, it is regarded as being an effective signal to send, both to consumers and to tax-payers. Finally, the countries also point out the negotiating advantages in a WTO context of the transition to a decoupled system. It could also be an important step towards obtaining understanding of the EU’s other negotiating aims.
As far as dynamic modulation is concerned, a number of ministers have welcomed the proposal in principle. They consider it to be a good way of securing the necessary funding to strengthen the priority objectives of food safety, quality, the environment and animal welfare and other important areas.
Other ministers have criticised dynamic modulation on the grounds that in reality it means a progressive reduction in subsidies in real terms and because the model – apart from franchising and capping – does not take sufficient account of existing regional differences. Similarly, opinion varies between the delegations regarding the reduction of the first pillar subsidies and regarding how the modulated resources should then be distributed and the criteria according to which this should take place."@en1
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