Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-09-24-Speech-2-242"
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"en.20020924.10.2-242"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like – quite briefly given the advanced hour – to respond to the questions that have been raised here. I do not think that I need to return to the last question, put by Mrs Miguélez Ramos, about these 32 million and the 27 million, as I already dealt with this in my first intervention.
Mr Maat is right to say that there can be no particular shift in the financial priorities in the year 2003, but in both sectors – agriculture and fisheries – we have a little chicken-and-egg problem. Some say that policy can only be designed on the basis of a budget, which means that you first have to enter more resources in the budget or transfer funds from elsewhere so that you can choose to reform within a sound legal framework. Others say that we first need to know what the policy looks like before we can talk about the financial resources that will be required. This is the practice that has been observed by Parliament hitherto. That is why it is important for us to take further steps towards reforming fisheries and agriculture. Only then can we actually determine the specific sums involved in detail. If you do not know the policy it makes the calculations very difficult.
Several Members have indicated that they are opposed to these across-the-board cuts of 0.8% and I too am against a systematic cut of this kind; furthermore I believe that generally speaking this is a book-keeping exercise and not a political act. Policy-making is after all actually about deploying resources selectively and not simply applying the same iron-fisted approach across the board.
Several Members asked why there are no proposals on tobacco, sugar or milk in the mid-term review. I should like to remind you that a study is underway on tobacco; this study will be completed at the end of the year. From the outset – and we have also discussed this several times here in this Parliament – the intention was that we should table a proposal for a new type of market organisation for tobacco next year. The same, incidentally, applies to sugar. It is quite clear that the market organisation that we have for sugar at the moment will not be able to survive in its current form, particularly if you take into account the impact that the 'Everything but Arms' initiative will have once the transitional period has elapsed, and that changes will therefore be necessary. Here too, however, I have already informed Parliament several times that we intend to work on these next year.
As far as milk is concerned, in principle this is contained in the mid-term review, which also makes it clear that the Commission is prepared at any time to make a legislative proposal adjusting the common organisation of the market in milk, but only if it is clear that the Member States are prepared politically to go in a particular direction. At present we actually have no chance of getting anywhere near the necessary majority in the Council. That then is also why it makes little sense to table a legislative proposal.
Cofinancing – and I know that for many of you this is a pet subject – is not an appropriate topic for discussion in a debate on an annual budget; it is something for the next financial perspective. That is the context in which it needs to be discussed because it does of course go far beyond agriculture alone. Incidentally, the provisions on cofinancing will in any case be changed or extended to some extent if we transfer funds from the first to the second pillar because cofinancing is automatically guaranteed in the second pillar. In this regard I can only agree with all of those who referred here to yesterday's article in
because although on the one hand in this article it is stated that the common agricultural policy is better than its reputation – a sermon that I preach around once every week – it is also clear that people want to see rural development given a boost and that they wish to have better quality and food safety. The only thing is that when it comes to practical implementation we also have to say where the money to boost rural development is going to come from. There is only one source of money available here and that is the first pillar. Anyone who tries to deny this fact does not exactly help us to make real progress with this policy.
I should like, incidentally, to make one more comment on this article, namely that, as I see it, it is becoming clear that agricultural policy has taken a turn for the better in those areas where there has been a willingness to implement appropriate reforms. An unwillingness to reform does not do either agricultural policy or farmers any favours.
Turning to the question about modernising the fleet and why we are blocking this, I do not wish to provoke a debate on fisheries reform now – we have sufficient opportunity to discuss these issues – but I should simply like to remind you that the Commission's proposals do not contain any provision on compulsory scrapping of a particular number of vessels in a particular segment in a particular Member State; we simply open up possibilities. Each shipowner continues to have the right to decide and no individual or Member State is being ordered or forced to scrap. It is time that these allegations stopped, because they only help to perpetuate bad feeling amongst fishermen. We really must discuss this on the basis of the facts.
If you say that the bad weather in Ireland has had such a serious effect on farmers' income, then I can assure you that we are also prepared to help Ireland. In this case, of course, we are not talking primarily about advance payments for arable premiums, but mainly about premiums for cattle. We are prepared to transfer the advances as early as 16 October, the first day on which the money is available.
I will just comment briefly on the question of research into animal diseases. Research has to be addressed within the research budget. Research into animal diseases also takes place in the research framework programme and not in our own budget. We have to ensure that this is a focus of research work, and we have done so."@en1
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