Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-02-28-Speech-3-068"
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"en.20010228.5.3-068"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, the majority of my group will support the supplementary budget tomorrow, but we find it hard to agree to the destruction of two million cattle in Europe. I am afraid that I must take issue with Mrs Haug: the destruction of cattle is indeed an ethical problem and cannot be treated as a market support measure. It is the tangible consequence of a bad agricultural policy: first the support and funding of overproduction, and then the destruction of overproduction. We saw this with the butter mountain, we see it with the milk lakes, and now we have the same problem with beef.
What is required is a fundamental shift in our approach to agricultural policy, and I can only appeal to this House to recall its earlier resolutions. For it was the European Parliament which, since 1990, has repeatedly highlighted the problems and called on the Council to set a new policy course. It was this House which took the BSE issue seriously, long before it reached the crisis levels that we see today. So I think it is very important, in this decision, to make it clear to the Commission and the Council that we need codecision rights for Parliament in this area at last, that we need to strengthen Parliament, and that we must finally agree on an agricultural policy reform which translates this concept into reality.
We are witnessing a substantial loss of confidence everywhere. Everyone who is currently engaged in an election campaign – as in Baden-Württemberg for example, where the
parliament elections are imminent – knows that at present, a great many questions are being asked about the European institutions. If we want to address this loss of confidence, if we want to restore confidence, we need fundamental reform. It is simply not enough to muddle through with pragmatic solutions and wait for the next crisis to happen.
We need a change of policy course. We must move away from overproduction, the funding of overproduction, and the funding of the destruction of overproduction. Everyone who sits on the Committee on Budgets knows that this agricultural policy is also open to a great deal of abuse. We are aware of the cases which crop up time and again. We know about several cases relating to butter and milk. We urgently need to set a new policy course, and I would like to make it clear that with today's debate and tomorrow's vote, we are sending out a signal that it is time for a fresh approach to agricultural policy. And it is time to restructure the budget so that Parliament has more influence over compulsory expenditure."@en1
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