Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-06-15-Speech-4-235"
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"en.20000615.11.4-235"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the proposal before us represents a revolution in control systems and provides the technical bases for a revolution in the method of managing the common agricultural policy. The proposed method is based on a modern geographic information system in which the cartographic information on holdings is digitised and integrated with the alphanumeric information needed to describe the holding and the aid received.
In terms of control, this method has enormous advantages and significantly reduces the possibility of fraud or any other irregularities. In terms of managing the CAP, this will finally create a management infrastructure with the technical basis to transform a policy which until now has irrationally subsidised the richest countries, regions and farmers and encouraged surpluses and environmental damage. The new system is geographically oriented, it will encourage sustainable agriculture and it will assist the regions and rural communities which are most in need. This shows that there is the political will and discernment needed from the European institutions to put a new policy into practice.
In my opinion, the integration into the system of virtually all the sectors financed by the CAP should be sought. The recent Court of Auditors report on classical swine fever shows that, even in areas where the geographic information initially seems less important, this is actually decisive and may form a fundamental instrument in rationalising the common agricultural policy.
It seems to me that there is therefore every advantage in immediately integrating into the system three sectors which are not included in the Commission proposal. These are oil, flax and hemp and tobacco. For the first, this involves integrating the existing specific geographic information system into the general system. For the second, we know that the Commission has already proposed the integration of this sector into arable crops but we do not know when and if the Commission proposal will be approved. As for the third, its integration is the most necessary and urgent. The fact that tobacco is not at the moment subsidised per hectare but by quantity produced in no way affects the possibility of this being immediately integrated into the system and even less so the advantages which this offers. The application of a geographic control system will ensure that subsidised tobacco is actually produced on the holdings for which the aid is claimed.
Furthermore, it would be absurd for the extensive information which the Commission requires from each holding in order to clear the accounts not to be integrated into the new system. In this respect, the Commission should reduce its requirements to what is necessary and reasonable. It must realise firstly that the CAP is placing an increasing and hidden administrative burden on national and regional authorities. Secondly, farmers should not be required to spend more time filling in forms than milking cows or tilling the earth. We do not want to turn farmers into bureaucrats. Although it is necessary to fight fraud, we must also prevent the complexity of the system causing a multiplication of minor formal irregularities and farmers being unfairly penalised. The simplification of the legislation applying the CAP is an absolute priority.
Finally, our expectations of the Commission are as follows. It is incomprehensible that a project of this size and scope should not culminate in the processing at European level of all the information gathered. It is unthinkable that a common policy such as the CAP should be handled like a collection of fifteen national policies or, even worse, like a pile of unconnected invoices from 80 or 90 national payment authorities. The Commission must process all the geographic information now required from the fifteen Member States in a coordinated manner. However, it is also vital that this precious resource is used to further the policy of economic and social cohesion, environmental protection and even regional development."@en1
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