Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-01-17-Speech-2-184"
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"en.20060117.20.2-184"2
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".
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, reform of the common organisation of the markets in sugar is one of the most major reforms to the common agricultural policy to be undertaken in the life of this Parliament. It is a balancing act on a high wire extending between, on the one hand, the demands made by the WTO, the obligations arising from the ‘Everything but Arms’ initiative and the panel’s decision, and, on the other, the producers of beet and cane sugar and the economic interests associated with them in Europe.
The Commission, represented by Commissioner Fischer Boel, Parliament and, above all, the Council bear the brunt of responsibility for this high-wire performance. Some 350 000 farming families and well over 100 000 workers in the relevant economic sectors of the EU are affected by it. Many sugar beet farmers and worker in sugar factories still want to know why it is so necessary to reform, and on such a massive scale, a sugar market organisation that has stood the test of decades. The answer is a very simple one: it is because the international commitments made long ago mean that, in the absence of reform, the future of beet and cane sugar cultivation in the European Union will be very much in doubt after 2009.
Reform of the common market organisation for sugar gives us the chance to keep a great deal of production in Europe, even though it will result in painful reductions in income for sugar producers. It is unfortunate – as Mr Fruteau indeed said – that, following the Council’s agreement of 24 November, the Commission and the Council of Ministers gave the impression that that had put the seal on the sugar market organisation. The fact is, though, that this agreement was no more and no less than a declaration of intent on the part of the Council. It is only when the ministers next meet, on 19 February, that the Council will be able to adopt the sugar market reform.
I am glad to see that the Council of Ministers has, to a significant degree, taken on board the demands we made in our motion for a resolution on 10 March 2005. For example, the Commission envisaged price reductions of up to 50% in the price of beet sugar. A majority on the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development wanted a reduction of 30% in the price of white sugar; the Council agreed to 36%. In its proposal, the Commission envisaged 60% for compensation payments, while the Council wants to increase them to 64.2%.
It is also heartening to see that the reform is to run until 2014/2015, and that there is to be no transfer of quotas from one Member State to another. It is at this point that I would like to thank the new German Agriculture Minister, Mr Horst Seehofer, who, shortly after being sworn in, promptly played a significant part during negotiations in the Council in getting the Commission’s proposals changed to the benefit of the European Union’s beet and cane sugar cultivators.
It is above all in the restructuring fund that improvements are needed. The Council’s plan is that at least 10% of the funds provided for restructuring will be used for agriculture. The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development is calling for at least 50% to be used for the creation of alternative means of agricultural production, and, when it comes to the final decision on that in the Council, I ask you, Commissioner Fischer Boel, and the Council, to take account of the way this House votes.
It is evident from Russia’s use of gas supplies to Ukraine as a means of political blackmail that we have to seize every opportunity to make the European Union just that bit more independent in energy matters. It is within the capacities of European agriculture to use agricultural land no longer required for food production to produce energy in the form of biomass. The Commission and the Council must support economically viable energy production by using the restructuring fund to provide start-up finance, and must do everything possible, to enable a stop to be put to the so-called triangular operations, to which reference has already been made.
In my capacity as shadow rapporteur for the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, I would like, in particular, to thank the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr Daul, and the rapporteur, Mr Fruteau, for their outstanding cooperation on the report on the reform of the common market organisation for sugar. I also wish to thank all those other Members who have made a constructive contribution to this report.
When, on Thursday, we vote on the reform of the sugar market, this House will be sending out a signal and demanding that the Commission and the Council change their declarations of intent, even if only in a few respects."@en1
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