Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-05-23-Speech-3-432"
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"en.20070523.28.3-432"2
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".
We can examine the proposal of the European Commission from two perspectives, and I hope you will pay attention to what I am about to say. The first perspective is whether the proposal is justified, the second is whether it is lawful.
If the European Parliament does not protect citizens’ rights, how can it protect its own rights? For in this case this is what is needed. The Council in fact did not wait for the opinion of Parliament to be accepted. The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development already decided last week to abolish the intervention with retroactive effect. They also decided that at the next Council of Ministers meeting, they would vote on this without debate.
No matter what decision we take, we can no longer influence the Council. Tomorrow we will not be deciding on the future of the common agricultural policy, but will debate this instead within the context of the ‘health check’. We will decide that we do not accept regulations with retroactive effect, and now we can afford to be honest, we can stick to our principles, which means that we must reject the Commission’s unlawful proposal.
As far as the first perspective is concerned, our task is fairly easy, for what we need to examine is whether the reasons offered in the submitted proposal are still valid today. Half a year ago, when the Commission submitted its proposal, it claimed that by now, by this day, there would be 9 million tonnes and by the end of this year 11 million tonnes of intervention corn. This has not turned out to be the case.
The intervention stocks currently comprise only 3 million tonnes, rather than 9 million, and at present the stocks are not increasing, there was no intervention offer in 2006, and there will not be any in 2009 either. The stocks are steadily decreasing, and by the end of the year intervention stocks may even reach zero, instead of 11 million tonnes.
The current prices are considerably higher than the intervention price. Contrary to the justification offered by the Commission, the market prospects for corn are good. It would be worth it for the Commission to read its own market forecasts. Last week DG Agriculture published an entirely new market forecast. According to this report, prices will continue to rise. Consumption in the EU is growing more rapidly than production. We should not base our present decisions on the flawed forecasts of half a year ago, but on these most recent predictions, which are supported by market trends.
Let me add that since 2004 sales of intervention stocks have in every case been at prices above the intervention price. The EU gets more money for corn than the amount for which it bought it. At the moment the price of corn in Hungary is around 130 euro, as compared to the intervention price of 101 euro. For the corn growers, however, in 2005 the buying up of the stock made it possible to avoid a loss of around 200 million euro. Sales of the produce that was bought up has in turn made it possible for livestock farmers, primarily in the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Poland to purchase feed at prices well below those of the world market.
Over the past four years, not only did European growers benefit from the intervention, but consumers did as well. The Commission began, however, to panic because during two years of record production, intervention stocks rose significantly. Now there is no longer any reason for panic. During years of lower production it was proven that stocks began to fall, and according to the latest forecasts made by the Commission, these stocks will continue in future to remain at a low level. It can be established, therefore, that the proposal, in the form in which the Commission submitted it, is no longer justified, and the original reasons for it have turned out to be false.
So let us look at whether the proposal is lawful. The proposal seeks to terminate intervention as from this year. The farmers already planted their corn back in April, the plants have sprouted and are now this big. Please, look at this: this is how big the corn is! I picked this corn here along the Rhine. I hope the grower will not be angry about this, for after all I am defending his interests and rights as well. Even the European Commission cannot order this corn back into the ground.
Naturally, the growers had to prepare for sowing quite a while ago. In the autumn they set aside the field in which they would plant corn. They ordered the planting seed and plant protection products, and spent money on these things. During the year, any sort of restriction to the intervention system constitutes a retroactive regulation. This is a serious breach of legal security and of growers’ legitimate expectations.
The European Union, which is so proud of its principles and its liberal rule of law, cannot allow this to happen. This proposal is not only contrary to our principles, but also to the Commission’s own earlier practice. In the course of earlier reforms – sugar reform, the abolition of the rye intervention – they allowed sufficient time for preparation. For instance, when the rye intervention was abolished, a year went by between the publication of the regulation and its implementation. Why do the corn growers not have a right to equal treatment? Are they not equal citizens of the European Union? If this can be done to the farmers, who will be next?"@en1
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