Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-06-23-Speech-4-018"
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"en.20050623.4.4-018"2
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".
Mr President, I too would like to join with my colleagues in welcoming Prime Minister Blair to the House and thanking him for his contribution and his speech this morning.
Much as I appreciate that speech, I am somewhat disconcerted by Gordon Brown’s annual address at the Mansion House last night. Despite the good words and the good intentions, I have three separate conclusions about what we saw last weekend, what we read in the papers from Britain, what we have seen in the news media over the last few days and what Mr Brown said in his speech last night.
Firstly, the plan is: dump the common agricultural policy. Ensure that any budget changes that are made will be predicated upon getting rid of the common agricultural policy. This is despite the fact that in 2002 there was a unanimous agreement amongst all Member States that the CAP budget will be fixed for a period up to 2013 on foot of reforms and on foot of sacrifices made by people living in rural areas and people involved in agriculture, including the reduction in the annual budget of CAP because there was no cost of living increase or no inflation index allowed for increasing of funding. So therefore what people really need to see is certainty.
Second, much emphasis is being placed upon the lack of ability on the part of Europe to deliver on things like the Lisbon Agenda and creating more jobs. Let us get real about this. Europe is as incapable of creating jobs as the British Government is of creating jobs. It is up to us as legislators and as rule makers to ensure that the legislation and the regulations that we put down do not impede private industry and private business to give them the right atmosphere, the right opportunity in which to thrive and to grow. And it is ridiculous to speak about how we must do more at European level when at the same time you will not increase the budget that is available to the European Union to undertake this work, despite the fact that the numbers of people involved in the European Union and the number of countries involved in the European Union has increased.
I think that if we want to speak about real debate and real engagement then that debate and that engagement must be based upon facts, certainties, not the continuous misconception, myth and innuendo that have been cast about over the last 20 years. Last night I heard Jeremy Paxman on
saying that the reform of the sugar regime in Europe was the most disreputable and inefficient form of subsidy given to farmers in Europe and is harming farmers in developing countries. On the same report about these reforms we heard the President of Guyana, the chairman of the Jamaican sugar industry and the chairman of the Mozambique sugar industry saying what a disaster these reforms would be for those countries. The President of Guyana actually said that they would receive EUR 8 million in debt relief because of the fantastic initiative undertaken by yourself and your government as leaders of the G8 with regard to alleviating debt in Africa and it would cost them GBP 44 million to try and comply with the reforms that would be put forward.
Finally, some will say that we are standing on the edge looking into the abyss. As I said to you in London last week, I believe we are standing at the dawn of a new future. You can give the leadership but that leadership requires compromise and consensus. It requires you to bring the other actors together to ensure we have a success."@en1
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