Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-12-13-Speech-2-561-000"
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"en.20111213.34.2-561-000"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we heard all about it this morning in another debate: how Europe finds it decidedly difficult to speak with one voice, even when it comes to fruit juices.
Germany opposed the text from the beginning, preferring to protect its own producers of concentrated fruit juice. For its part, Spain, and particularly the region of Valencia, the leading European orange juice producer, was happy to see it mixed with mandarin juice. This is what they do – so they say – in Brazil, a serious competitor and the world’s leading producer and supplier of 80% of the orange juice consumed by Europeans. For Europe is actually a very attractive market: every year, we drink 300 million litres of orange juice, or half of global consumption.
That just goes to show that the agreement reached, dragged out and produced by our rapporteur, Mr Perello Rodriguez, who I would also like to thank, with the European Parliament delegation, the Polish Presidency and the Commission, was anything but clear at the outset. That is why, on behalf of my group, I support the excellent compromise that was finally reached, which focuses on product quality but also clear consumer information
From now on – and it has been a hard-fought battle, mainly with Carl Schlyter – giving a juice or a nectar the name of a minor ingredient: strawberry juice, for example, where the main fruit in the drink is, in fact, apple, will no longer be allowed. This is very common practice at present. It is therefore a real paradigm shift, which will take some getting used to. A further key provision, this time in terms of health, is the practice of adding sugar to fruit juices now being prohibited. Here again, we have another latency period. It was ultimately important that the directive maintained national specificities through the unambiguous designation of products as a ‘fruit juice’, ‘fruit juice made from concentrate’ or ‘nectar’.
I will end with an urgent appeal to the Commission and the Commissioner, in particular, its influential Directorate for Agriculture: European fruit and vegetable growers are suffering. They are suffering because of the crisis and because of international competition. Keep listening to them, please, and do not promote the marketing of products from elsewhere –China, for example, or anywhere else for that matter."@en1
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