Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-05-15-Speech-2-177"
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"en.20010515.8.2-177"2
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"Mr President, it is a pleasure to see the Commissioner here. I may well disagree with his proposals but I wish to begin by saying that we believe that Commissioner Fischler is an excellent Agriculture Commissioner, although he might have got this report slightly wrong. That is no criticism of Mr Fischler himself. It is well known that we need to address the serious problem facing the beef industry, and that is certainly what brought about the Commission's proposal.
I say to the Commissioner that there is a Byzantine proverb: for those who have food, there are many problems; for those who have not, there is only one problem, and it is, of course, a great problem when there is too much beef in the marketplace. This is exactly what the Commissioner is trying to address. However, in my opinion as rapporteur, he has missed the mark.
It is easy for me to stand here and criticise, but what I tried to do in my report was to be constructive and move the situation forward – I realise that the Commissioner does not agree with some of the measures. I hope that when the Commissioner addresses us he will perhaps answer one question: Will the 15 Council members agree with the Commission's proposals? I think they might not. I should like to know whether the view of the Commission is that they will agree with the Commission's proposals or not.
First, the one thing that was voted out in the Committee on Agriculture that I believe was a mistake was the 90-head limit. One of the major problems that we have – and the Commissioner is quite right that we have a problem with overproduction and we have pushed forward the proposals to allow the intervention limits to be raised – is that by changing the 90-head limit there is a real risk that we cut off some of those producers in their prime. I say to those Members who do not understand agriculture that to raise a beef animal from conception to the actual marketplace takes somewhere in the region of three years. It is a very long process. You cannot switch off something like that overnight and just say: well, hang on a minute, these cattle cannot be supported because suddenly we have changed our minds. If the Commissioner cannot at least change that 90-head limit – and we hope that one of the amendments may help us; we are looking at that at the moment – then at least he should look at helping those farmers who are affected by the 90-head limit so that they can adjust, because agriculture is a long-term process, not a short-term process.
We have seen the effects of BSE. This is again why I am concerned a little about the report. As the Commissioner knows, BSE has been a major problem in the United Kingdom. It has been the archetype of the BSE crisis. We got through it and with careful construction we brought our market back. It was rather unfortunate that foot-and-mouth disease played a part in destroying the very work that had been done to get the marketplace back, bearing in mind that foot and mouth has nothing to do with food, in as much as it is of no danger to the public.
I ask the Commissioner not to make knee-jerk reactions, because I believe this is a knee-jerk reaction. At the moment I cannot accept the new amendments tabled. I have a great concern that we are trying to move away from the real issues here. As I said, it is easy to stand here and criticise and I hope the Commissioner takes on board the amendments. The question we ask is whether or not the proposals satisfy the requirements: I believe a few of the Commission's proposals do but the majority fall short. I leave the Commissioner with one last thought: if he finds it impossible to accept Parliament's proposals, then he may wish to see the report referred back to the Committee on Agriculture. Then we could rediscuss it, because we have put forward some good proposals and if it is a wish of this august House that it be referred back, then so be it."@en1
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