Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-07-03-Speech-3-051"
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"en.20020703.2.3-051"2
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"Mr President, I would like to congratulate the Danish government on assuming the presidency and wish them all success during their six months in office. They have a formidable task ahead of them and I welcome the top priority that they have given to completing the enlargement negotiations by December.
I support the sentiments expressed recently by the Danish foreign minister, Per Stig Møller, when he underlined the need for the EU to deliver on its promises to the applicant countries. However, we also have a moral obligation to honour promises already given to existing Member States. The proposals currently being considered by agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler, as part of the CAP mid-term review, are a betrayal of the Berlin Agenda 2000 agreement. New proposals on modulation and the de-coupling of livestock premiums in favour of a system based on area-based payments spell disaster for EU farmers.
As much as 20% of farmers' total direct payments would be clawed back and transferred to some rural development measures or returned back into the CAP budget itself. As grain and livestock producers are now totally dependant on direct payments for their incomes, the new proposals would put them out of business.
Farming incomes have already fallen. Agriculture is the cornerstone of the rural economy in Europe and rural development will be a meaningless platitude if farmers are penalised and impoverished by the implementation of the proposals currently leaked by the EU Commission. Preparing for enlargement by penalising farmers is morally and politically wrong and could well result in alienating them from the enlargement process itself.
Instead enlargement should be financed from within the current budget by increasing spending to existing threshold limits. At the moment, the budget is being under-spent by as much as 20%, totalling some EUR 25 billion. By using these monies, the EU would be demonstrating its political will to proceed with enlargement with conviction and on time."@en1
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