Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-10-23-Speech-2-344"
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"en.20071023.26.2-344"2
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"Mr President, I recall what I think is an old Japanese curse: ‘May you live in interesting times’, and I think this is exactly what we are doing now. We have seen, over the last six to eight months, prices for raw materials within the agricultural sector rocketing, as mentioned already by the speakers, but I have to say that this is happening from an historically low level. I think this is an important reminder to all of us. These increases in prices will be reflected on consumer prices but to a lower extent. If I may use the example of bread, a basic commodity – and I will use a German example – if you take the price of bread in a supermarket or in a store in Germany, only 4% of the price relates to the price of the cost of the wheat.
For the dairy sector, as has been mentioned already, a number of different measures have already been foreseen. Milk quotas were increased on 1 April 2006 and 1 April 2007 by 0.5% in 11 Member States. On 1 April 2006, eight new Member States received this restructuring reserve varying from between 2% and 5% of their national quota level. On 1 April 2008 – next year – another 0.5% will be added to the increase in the quota allocated to 11 Member States.
In addition, all market support aids have been massively reduced and, at the moment, there are no export refunds and no disposal aid at all – zero for both of them. The market outlook report in the dairy sector will be adopted by the Commission later this year and it will provide us with the basis for a further discussion on whether we need to increase again the quota. Moreover, I have already had the chance here to signal clearly the expiry of the milk quota system by 31 March 2015, and indicated as well that we needed, for the period from now until 2015, a soft landing for the abolition of the quota system. Among the possibilities mentioned is to increase the quota system over the period and we will have the possibility to discuss this during the health check next year.
In the cereals sector there are various different reasons for the increase in prices. I shall just say, just to be sure that there are no misunderstandings, it is not biofuels that are causing the steep increase in prices. We use, today, less than 2% of cereal production for ethanol in Europe, but the reasons are different: adverse weather conditions in Australia, drought in southern Europe, floods in the northern part of Europe, increasing demand from India and China, and restricted exports out of Russia and Ukraine. Then, of course, there is the snowball effect from the very strong focus on ethanol in the United States and, therefore, a certain influence on the increase of prices in corn.
The Commission has, as mentioned already, reacted: set-aside is put to zero for the coming production year, for the sowing to take place this autumn and next spring. Then whether to continue a zero set-aside will be a discussion to be held during the health check. We expect that the zero set-aside could contribute to somewhere between 10 and 12-15 million tonnes, depending on the climatic conditions. Moreover, I will submit to the College of Commissioners a proposal to the Council to suspend cereal import duties only for the current market year. I think that those initiatives will help us to ease the pressure on the livestock farming and the consumer prices.
There are different problems for the pigmeat sector. The pipelines are filled with meat, so there is an imbalance on the input and output in the sector and therefore the management committee decided last Thursday to introduce a private storage that I hope will help the problems in the pigmeat sector. There are other possibilities, but I think we should try to find the right balance because, if it is only a question of prolonging the pain, then we gain absolutely nothing.
So, I think that we have reacted and I have had the possibility to thank Parliament for its quick reaction so that we could send clear signals as soon as possible to the farming sector on the zero set-aside. I would like to come back to the GMO question in my final remarks, as I can see that my time has expired."@en1
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