Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-04-10-Speech-3-318"
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I too would like to thank Mrs Ayuso for this report and for the work she has done. She has spared neither effort nor trouble in trying to bring about a positive outcome in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, but that has unfortunately not been possible.
Around 20 million hectolitres of alcohol are produced in Europe every year, around 13 million hectolitres of which are of agricultural origin. The attempt has often been made to create a common market organisation for alcohol in the EU. Up to now, proposals for this have always failed at Council level, as the national regulatory systems were so heterogeneous, and the frameworks and aid structures so diverse, that no common denominator could be found. This time, the hurdle at which it fell was that of the legal basis.
The new Commission proposal envisages what is termed a ‘lightweight’ COM, with no provision for intervention mechanisms to the detriment of the EAGGF or of export refunds, and, hence, comprises only the definition of products, a system of monitoring foreign trade through import and export licences, the possibility of laying down tariff quotas and a protection clause, the collection of statistical data or specific provisions on state aid.
My response to this is that I basically welcome the Commission proposal, even though the current position of the alcohol sector in Austria is not a very important problem. I am well aware, though, that for other Member States the inclusion of synthetic alcohol in the proposed COM is a central issue. It is precisely for this reason that I do not see it as possible, because there is no basis that is legally incontestable. It is for that reason, too, that I fully endorse our rapporteur's view that we should call on the Commission to submit a new proposal.
At this point I would like to make a more critical observation on the relationship between agricultural and synthetic alcohols. The concerns of farmers and of the rural areas as a whole matter to me. It is from this perspective that I would like to point out that the agricultural manufacture of alcohol as the product of specific raw materials such as, for example, wine, fruit, corn, and potatoes represents an important trade outlet. I want to firmly emphasise that this portfolio should cover the production and sale of agricultural alcohol and not of synthetic alcohol. Synthetic alcohol is in my view to be used only for industry, pharmacy, energy and so on, and not mixed with any other products. As a representative of rural areas in Parliament, I will always put forward the interests of farmers and of rural areas, as multifunctional, farm-based, universal and environmentally-responsible agriculture is the model for land management throughout the whole of Europe. It is my view that any new proposal by the Commission should, in any case, provide for a specific Management Committee, as the present Management Committee for Wine is already overstretched by its plethora of competences.
In conclusion, I wish to declare my wholehearted commitment to a common agricultural policy, from which I have learned of the problems of farmers in the different Member States."@en1
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