Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-06-03-Speech-2-212"
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"en.20030603.6.2-212"2
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"Mr President, as far as we are concerned, Commissioner Fischler will go down in history as the Commissioner of decoupling. If, in order to guarantee a successful WTO agreement, we have to choose between two options, then we would pick decoupling rather than price reduction. If the Council and Commission have listened carefully, this is, in any case, the direction that Parliament has indicated.
The CDA (Christian Democrat) delegation in the European Parliament has been happy to help reach a compromise on the Cunha report which contains a number of points that were of interest to us and which we have highlighted by means of amendments. First of all, there is set-aside. In our opinion, it should be possible to rotate, and it should be up to the farmer to decide, rather than it being fixed for ten years. Secondly, land that has been decoupled and where other products may possibly grow should definitely not be used for growing free products, including consumption potatoes and vegetables. The CDA has tabled an amendment to that effect, which has been adopted by the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats.
Our third point, which is a little more controversial, is that we welcome the increase in franchise per farm on which decoupling is practised, from EUR 5 000 to 7 500, but that is too little in our opinion. The European Christian Democrats should protect the family concern and in our view, this ceiling should be raised to EUR 10 000 or 15 000. In fact, we in the CDA have, together with our British colleagues, tabled an amendment for EUR 10 000, and a Spanish amendment has been tabled for EUR 15 000, both of which we will support.
With regard to the dairy sector and reform, we back the Jeggle report and, partly based on a CDA amendment, we have decided in favour of far less far-reaching decoupling and also for change. In our opinion, we should first reach 5%, wait for a WTO agreement and possibly implement the Berlin Agreement in its entirety. Anyone who thinks that the dairy sector should be reformed – and I am particularly addressing Mrs Kinnock – should realise that, since 1983, the European Union has surrendered 5% of the global market and that production has not benefited the developing countries but other rich ones. To state that we must further pull down European dairy policy without considering the effects is evidence of armchair socialism. It is a cheap form of armchair socialism. I am in favour of any discussion on development cooperation, provided this is done on the basis of the agreements which Europe has reached with the 48 poorest countries and after we have considered the implications for the European farmers and farmers in developing countries. If we fail to do this, the European farmers will be sitting targets in the whole discussion on development cooperation. As a member of this Parliament, I refuse to have any part in this."@en1
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