Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-04-20-Speech-2-410"
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"Mr President, first of all, I would like to thank Mr De Castro and Mr Le Foll, from Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, for having raised these problems for discussion here in this House.
Immediately afterwards, in July, I will propose a debate to the Council of Ministers of Agriculture and to Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the basis of these findings. So between now and autumn or the end of the year, I will come here with proposals that will allow us to foresee and, as far as possible, prevent this sort of crisis – especially in the dairy sector, because it has experienced the most difficult circumstances of all – and thus to propose solutions, not just for the short term, but also for the medium and long terms.
We will, of course, learn lessons from this for other agricultural sectors in which we will have to intervene. Perhaps I could now take the opportunity to give you some information to follow on from the debates that we will have today.
The Commission pays close attention to the development of the markets in other sectors. Using the intervention methods that we currently have at our disposal – mechanisms for intervening in the markets, used in particular as safety nets – we will do our best to prevent a repeat of situations similar to that which has hit the dairy sector.
Thank you very much. I will listen closely to the questions and problems that you are going to raise and I will take the floor again at the end to say a few things.
It is true: I, too, must acknowledge that farmers’ revenues fell spectacularly in 2009, which was nothing more than a continuation of the trend recorded in 2008. Therefore, this is a situation that we have seldom encountered on the European market. It coincides with this market increasingly opening up on the world market and follows the recent reforms of the common agricultural policy.
This crisis has affected the dairy sector in particular. Last year, we saw the sector’s producers endure a difficult situation, particularly those in rural regions in which dairy production is essential not only to the agricultural sector, but also to economic activity and employment in general.
It is in this context that the European Commission took measures last year, firstly by mobilising mechanisms for intervening in the markets to halt the fall in prices. It released significant funds, more than EUR 400 million, to finance these interventions in the markets. However, as Mr Le Foll pointed out, a EUR 300 million fund was also mobilised to enable the Member States to come to the aid of the dairy sector’s worst-affected producers.
This decision, then, was taken last year. It gave the Member States the opportunity to set criteria on the basis of which funds would be distributed, channelling them, above all, to those producers who needed them most.
I must also make it clear that these criteria were set by the Member States and did not require the Commission’s approval. The Member States were simply obliged to inform, to notify the Commission of which criteria they had chosen.
I can announce to you that, as far as I know, all the Member States informed the Commission of their decision to apply the measures. They have therefore set the criteria on the basis of which they will distribute these funds, and the process of distributing the aid will begin. The Member States have until June to distribute these funds.
So, as I was saying, firstly, there has been a phase of intervening on the markets to put them back on an even keel. I think that the current situation shows us that this intervention has been successful, because prices have stabilised. There are still variations, of course, but they are within reasonable limits, within the normal limits of the market. Secondly, there are support measures that will be reaching producers soon. Those, then, are the measures that have already been taken.
I am keen to restate here what I recently told Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development: as Commissioner, I hope to learn lessons from the specific situation that we experienced last year. I do not wish to wait for the common agricultural policy post-2013 reform, when we will certainly come here with more solid answers for the entire agricultural sector. I will not wait for the conclusion of the common agricultural policy 2013 reform to make specific proposals for the dairy sector, on the basis of the conclusions of the high-level group that was created last year in the wake of this crisis and whose work is now under way. This group will present its findings in June."@en1
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