Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-10-25-Speech-4-123"
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"en.20011025.2.4-123"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the crisis besetting livestock farming in Europe is of an unprecedented scale. If it is not checked it will have terrible consequences for our economies, our societies and for life in our territories. In the beef and veal sector, despite the mollifying proposals that Commissioner Fischler has put to us – he would have us believe that the crisis is now behind us – we are still in a slump. In my own country, for example, producers can no longer find takers for their animals even at tragically low prices, which no longer cover production costs. Despair is gaining ground. Every day, livestock breeders are being forced out of business in the most tragic way. Waiting patiently for our remaining producers to go out of business would be a suicidal policy.
I repeat, there is a considerable deficit in the European Union’s sheepmeat sector and looking at the average age of livestock breeders, which is increasing, it is not hard to predict that this deficit will increase in coming years. Sheep-farmers’ incomes are amongst the lowest in agriculture, as the Commission itself acknowledges. In the current economic climate, we also see many producers in desperate situations and who are forced to stop farming because their income is insufficient. Apart from the human and social tragedy that this represents, it is also an ecological tragedy because sheep breeding and goat breeding are often the last defence against desertification in regions where farming is difficult. This is why your Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development felt that it was crucial to make some slight improvements to the Commission’s proposal for a regulation, in order to simplify, to be able to forecast and to increase aid to a sector that is suffering harshly, whose economic, social and ecological impact is so important and which gives cattle farmers the opportunity to convert, if it is increased sufficiently. The very coherent proposals that have been presented attempt to bring the system of aid for the sheepmeat sector into line with aid for milk-cows, whilst complying with budgetary constraints, because the COM in the sheepmeat sector is relatively cheap due to the number of customers for each producer. These proposals also comply with our international commitments, since the proposed reform aims to separate aid and an income insurance system, which could act as a safety net.
The sheepmeat sector today needs to be stabilised and supported, otherwise it will disappear from many regions. It requires a reform which is both generous and responsible, and this is what Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture has proposed. I hope that the House will support us and that the Council will listen."@en1
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