Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-11-18-Speech-2-072"
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"en.20081118.4.2-072"2
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"Mr President, I have been listening carefully and I think that the record on ‘catch-the-eye’ shows clearly that there is huge interest in this Parliament in the agricultural sector and the consequences of the decisions that will be taken.
I should like to pick up a few of the issues that have been mentioned. Firstly, I would like to stress that I think you have either misunderstood or missed something when you tried to convince me that modulation means taking the money away from the farmers, which is definitely not the case. We need modulation because we have new challenges and we need to bolster farmers’ possibilities to make investments in order to meet these new challenges. So I think, on the contrary, you can say in modulation we actually increase the funding available for the agricultural sector because there is cofinancing. That is what it is all about. If you continue to say that we are taking money from the farmers, then there is a certain misunderstanding among those of you who have chosen this argument.
Milk seems today to have been the big issue. Neil Parish said in his first speech that you have 27 Member States – 27 customers – in your committee, but, having listened to the discussion today, I would have thought that you had many more, because listening here you can pick and choose any thing from a 0% increase to a 10% increase. The presidency and the Commission are obliged to try to find the right balance.
To those who talk about a milk fund: it is strange because I still recall the 2003 negotiations where we compensated the milk producers all over Europe. Let me take Germany as an example: German dairy farmers were compensated by EUR 1 billion every year – money transferred from their milk payment into their single payment scheme. But at that stage I did not hear anyone talking about a milk fund, and that is the reason why, because we know that the dairy sector is facing difficulties, we have now added to the new challenges a milk line. I am sure that we will be able to design a very nice package for the milk producers in those areas that are facing difficulties.
I must say that I am surprised that there is so much resistance to increasing the milk quota, knowing that last year we collected EUR 338 million in superlevy from European milk producers. To me this is definitely not the way I want to go forward. I want to give farmers the possibility to respond to the markets. Increasing quotas does not mean an obligation to produce: it is only a possibility for those who are strong on the internal or the external markets. It has to be kept in mind that some of the competitive ones are paying EUR 338 million every year to stay in business.
Concerning redistribution, it is obvious that there was broad agreement that this health check was not going to be a new reform and that we were therefore building on the 2003 reform. I think both the presidency and the Commission can admit that there is strong pressure from the new Member States to get a more equal payment, and I know that this will be a discussion that will be strongly defended in the 2013 reform. We might find some solutions even now for the new Member States in the compromise, and I hope you will be surprised in a positive way.
Finally, could I just say, on the issue of tobacco that was raised, that I was impressed by Mr Gklavakis, who is always trying to convince us that tobacco is important, and we believe that is so in his own region. But tobacco is not in the health check. The tobacco reform was made in 2004 and was supported by all countries, including tobacco-producing Member States. As I have said many times, I am certainly not going to reopen the tobacco reform. But I will be open to help all those Member States, all those regions, that face problems, because there are many possibilities available in the rural development policy. I am sure we can create solutions that will soften the consequences of the decisions already taken for the tobacco producers.
I have to keep my remarks short, but my conclusion on the discussion today will be clearly that we need today, more than ever before, a common agricultural policy. I agree with Ms McGuinness that a situation where renationalisation would be the only answer would definitely jeopardise the European agricultural sector.
Let us keep our common agricultural policy with the flexibility that we have included in our different choices within the rural development policy. But we do need a common European agricultural policy. That would be my conclusion from the discussions today. I want to thank all of you for this dedicated approach."@en1
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