Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-04-19-Speech-1-229"
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"en.20100419.24.1-229"2
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"Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Dorfmann for an excellent report on the Commission communication entitled ‘Towards a better targeting of the aid to farmers in areas with natural handicaps’.
I would like to address a couple of issues. The overall objective of the natural handicap payments is to ensure continued land use and, through agricultural land management, maintain the countryside as well as to promote sustainable farming systems. The payments to farmers in these areas compensate farmers’ additional costs and income forgone, which occur due to the existing natural handicap.
The Council has decided to remove the socio-economic criteria from the objectives of natural handicap payments. The removal of socio-economic criteria should be seen in the context of the whole suite of measures available to Member States in the Rural Development Regulation – the diversification into non-agricultural activities, the development of micro- and small and medium-sized enterprises and tourism activities, as well as the provision of basic services.
So, the natural handicap payments are not the intervention lever that aims to tackle this issue of depopulation. Compensating farmers in areas where production is not hampered by natural handicaps and where there is no additional cost or income forgone would distort competition with farmers in other areas. Furthermore, socio-economic indicators change over time and would, therefore, require a continual follow-up and revision process of each area concerned.
The proposal to take remoteness into account is not practical against the agreed framework set down by the Council, which relates to natural handicaps. In terms of their peripherality, there are other levels of delimitation possible, for example, the specific handicap article of the Regulation.
At the different stages of the process, the Commission invited Member States to submit alternative proposals for biophysical criteria and their thresholds. These proposals will be analysed by scientists for their validity and, above all, for their transparency and possible Community-wide applicability. The alternative thresholds, however, must lead to the conclusion that an area in question is affected by a significant handicap, as desired by the Council.
Once the exercise of testing a delimitation based on biophysical criteria is completed, the Commission proposal for the common agricultural policy after 2013 will take the results of this exercise into account. Any legal proposal will also aim for a smooth transition for those areas which may lose their status of areas with a natural handicap."@en1
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