Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-11-13-Speech-1-166"
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"en.20061113.20.1-166"2
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"Mr President, according to Government figures, the average earnings of farmers in my constituency in Scotland in 2005 were GBP 10 000, or EUR 14 000. This is disastrous: it is forcing farmers into bankruptcy! They do not have any room for reinvestment in the industry. Instead of offering practical help, Prime Minister Blair comes up with the startling proposal to slash 20% off farmers’ single-farm payments, on top of the existing 5% compulsory modulation that already exists and, as we have heard from Mr Goepel, a further 8% that will be deducted to pay for Bulgaria and Romania.
In other words, British farmers – as Britain appears to be the only Member State really pushing for this voluntary modulation – will lose roughly 33% of their subsidy, which for many of them is a vital lifeline. But worse, this naked discrimination against UK farmers will place them at a huge competitive disadvantage to all other farmers in every other Member State in Europe. I say to the Commissioner: it may be that in the eyes of the WTO this does not amount to trade distortion, but in the pockets of farmers it certainly amounts to a catastrophe.
I must also protest at the threats being issued by the UK Government, which tells us that if we vote against voluntary modulation it will compromise the future of the popular agri-environment schemes in which many UK farmers have participated. This is tantamount to blackmail and coming from a government that has imposed more than 80 stealth taxes, from a Chancellor – Gordon Brown – who has made taxation in the UK higher than Germany or France and now wants us to believe that he needs to slash 25% off our farmers’ single-farm payments in order to be able to afford agri-environment schemes, it is an absolute joke. I can tell Mr Brown that if he watches the way this House votes on this proposal, he will see what we think of his sense of humour."@en1
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