Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-06-03-Speech-2-167"
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"en.20030603.6.2-167"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, last June you presented us with a document on reform of the CAP which established the objectives which this reform should pursue: food quality and safety, the strengthening of rural development and more extensive production methods which are compatible with the environment. Nobody could oppose these objectives, but today we have to tell you that the instruments you wish to use are not only mistaken, because they are not valid in terms of achieving the proposed objectives, but that, most seriously, they move in the opposite direction.
I say no to a linear modulation, which would mean that the cut in direct aid would affect all farmers equally in order to fund the budgetary gaps in the Brussels agreement. And I say no to a modulation which is the same regardless of differences between favoured and less favoured areas, and which does not take account of the farmers’ incomes. And I say no to dealing with the person who receives EUR 5 000 in the same way as the person who receives EUR 50 000 or more. That is not fair, Commissioner.
For all these reasons, I would ask you, please, to show flexibility, not to expel the small and medium-sized farms from the market. Those smaller farms guarantee the viability of a rural framework which take up more than 80% of European rural territory. This reform, essentially, does not provide cohesion, it does not contribute more social justice to an agricultural policy which is in great need of it. I would ask you to reflect and to modify this proposal.
One of the key elements of your reform – the decoupling of subsidies – may have adverse effects if we do not manage to modify it. The decoupling proposed to us for certain sectors as an instrument capable of creating a new model for agricultural policy is not viable if you maintain the criterion of historical references in order to set the decoupled aid by farm.
The direct aid, as laid out, corresponds to the logic of the market and is directly linked to quantities produced and the yields allocated. According to the information that you yourself have provided, in 2001 5% of European farmers received 50% of the direct subsidies. You cannot ask us to accept the validity of this great imbalance in the distribution of aid in order to support the implementation of a new CAP.
In the herbaceous sector, a model in which you propose total decoupling, 3% of farms receive 40% of the support. If we work on that basis, if we allow that situation to continue, Commissioner, we would be changing everything so that everything can stay the same.
Please allow me once again to ask you to change the criteria for allocating decoupled aid; use multifunctional criteria in order to establish genuine multifunctional aid by farm. Agricultural multifunctionality means that agriculture contributes to the maintenance of the rural population, creating jobs. It also helps to preserve the environment, preventing depopulation and desertification of our territory.
You should therefore introduce the criterion of territory, the criterion of agricultural surface area, the criterion of employment generated and of the environmental benefits contributed by the farm and then we will be in a position to talk about genuine multifunctional aid. Of a genuine decoupling of aid to production, but of a genuine coupling of aid to producers and their farms.
You yourself recognise that this proposed decoupling will create serious problems for many small and medium-sized farms, in less favoured and less productive areas. If that is the case, change it, Commissioner, because otherwise we will be banishing many of the European Union’s small and medium-sized farms from the agricultural system.
Another key element of this reform is modulation. In June I applauded and supported it. Let us reinforce rural development by means of significant modulation, transferring funds from the first pillar to the second pillar. What is now proposed to us following the budgetary Council in Brussels on 24 and 25 October – where the Community budget was cut – is that just 6% of the modulation should go to rural development, leaving the rest to fund sectoral reforms in the first pillar.
It is true, as you say, that this is a Council agreement and that the Council therefore has political responsibility for it, as do those people who, like my government, applauded it and who lied to the farmers, telling them that they would guarantee sufficient budget until 2013. That is not true. In 2008 there will be problems, as you have acknowledged. I would ask you to be a little more rebellious, to make a little more effort, if you really believe that rural development has to be strengthened in order to create a more sustainable and fairer CAP."@en1
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