Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-10-10-Speech-3-224"
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"en.20071010.22.3-224"2
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"Mr President, I wish that a group of farmers who I spoke to this afternoon from the North West of Ireland were here to listen to this debate because they might even want to contribute. Let us be honest: no one wants their financial affairs made public, and I think there are Members of this House who are talking about openness and transparency who would run a mile from it themselves. I liked the point made by someone else this evening that it may be right that we publish the payments of everyone who gets money from the public purse. Having said that, I believe we are going to have publication of payments and I believe generally in this term ‘openness and transparency’, but it is a two-way street.
I also would question the notion that information is equal to understanding and it is because of that question that I think you do need to have clarification about what the payments actually mean. The group of farmers I met today were in beef and sheep farming, and many of them were using their single farm payment to subsidise their production. Perhaps they are silly to do that. Maybe they should stop farming and let the farms go to rack and ruin and continue to accept the cheque.
Some comments have been made here about the failure of policy as though it were farmers’ fault. But I think it is the policymakers of Europe who should take the rap for the failures that have been identified. Those who talk about intervention and export refunds must have forgotten about the 2003 reforms. We now have a problem of shortages within the European Union. We import beef. Global demand is rising for dairy products, and grain is in short supply so we have moved on a great deal. Yes, publish, but explain. Protect people and make sure that they are not ridiculed wrongly for the payments they receive. Do not use this as a weapon to beat farmers with. The Commission are doing it already in the health check, where they have talked about how, now that publication will be made, we could look at cutting back on payments. Perhaps we need to do that at the higher level, but let us be honest in how we debate this topic. I think we do need to review the use that the information is put to."@en1
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