Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-02-15-Speech-3-239"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20060215.15.3-239"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, it is always good to belong to one of the larger groups, because you get more time. Commissioner, in my first speech I placed the emphasis on not succumbing to the risk of relapse, and spoke of the social balance that must be involved in a new system of this type, but now I would also like to focus on preventative crisis management. All of the crises that have been mentioned here, including the fires, were, in part, caused by human beings and human action. Even the BSE crisis was not sent down from on high, but was caused by cows being fed to cows, completely contrary to any sense in good farming practice.
If we plant maize and eucalyptus in dry areas, we should not then be surprised when damage by fire and drought is the result. When we talk about liberalisation, on which one Member has expressed rather different ideas, we should not be surprised – if we look at it as an end rather than as a means – that many people go out of business and fall into major crises, including income crises. We must therefore ensure that proper arrangements are made, through the WTO, for qualified market access.
I would point out that many smallholdings and organic farms have created a higher value, high-quality market by keeping genetically modified organisms out. If we now botch coexistence, it will turn into a Trojan horse, and then these good, high-quality markets, including the wine market, will have gone. Then we will lurch into crises that we could have prevented, and insurance will be the last of the things we need to talk about.
However, Commissioner, I am also talking about the possibility of economic development in rural areas and the fact that, when it comes to the second pillar, we are now threatened with financial exhaustion. We should then not be surprised if many farmers who have entered these higher-value markets are prevented from pursuing this development by exhaustion and are on the point of getting out. General agricultural policy therefore also has to fulfil a preventative function.
I would also remind you that fossil fuels are going to run out in the not too distant future, and that we must prepare farmers for the need to convert to other energy sources and, perhaps, help them to benefit from them. We can operate crisis prevention in this context, too, and I would like these preventative considerations to play a role in the legislative proposal by the Commission – which is currently in the brainstorming phase this year.
To Mrs Batzeli I would say that, when I talked about management responsibility, I did not simply want to blame the crises on the incompetence of the farmers, but I did want agriculture to have an influence on policy in the way I have described, so that the crises do not arise in the first place, and so that in future farmers are guaranteed a decent income."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples