Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-06-03-Speech-2-199"
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"en.20030603.6.2-199"2
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"Mr President, the key elements of this reform are decoupling and modulation; the two measures combined are going to have a very considerable impact on the development of the least-favoured areas and that worries us. According to the studies carried out, in my country we could see the abandonment of one million and a half hectares of cereals, half of which are in my region, Castilla-La Mancha, one of the regions with the lowest yields in the European Union.
The total decoupling of aid seems to me to be a hasty decision, particularly in view of the precedent of the United States, which introduced this measure in 1996. The measure is costing the US billions of dollars in emergency aid to alleviate the losses to farmers.
Furthermore, the European Commission has not yet clarified to this Parliament what the functioning of the complicated system of rights it has conceived of would be. The excuse used is the negotiations with the WTO, but a modest partial decoupling would be sufficient to provide the room for manoeuvre in those negotiations.
We agree on the need to strengthen rural development, but European farmers will never understand any cut which does not benefit that development. Therefore, the reduction in subsidies proposed by the Commission in order to deal with other financial needs should be eliminated. Furthermore, it does not make any sense to adopt decisions today on the basis of calculations and estimates which could vary over the next few years.
With regard to the rice sector, it should be said that this sector is the main loser from this reform. The production in the intervention price of 50%, as proposed by the Commission, without full compensation, in addition to the repercussions of the Everything but Arms Agreement, will jeopardise Community production. While we must support the commitments made by the European Union to those countries, it is also necessary to find a solution for many countries of Europe.
The current common organisation of the market in rice contains perverse elements, particularly the system of penalties for exceeding the maximum guaranteed areas. In the rice sector those penalties are exponential, which could lead to penalties of up to 50%, for an excess of just 8%, in contrast to the cereals sector, in which penalties are proportional to the excess.
I believe that resolving this and establishing aid which compensates fully for the reduction in the guaranteed price are two of the things that the rice sector is demanding of this Parliament, the Commission and the Council, and they must be taken into account.
I would like to reiterate my full support for the report by Mr Bautista, which furthermore urges the Council of Ministers of the European Union to adopt the Commission’s proposal to negotiate a fixed tariff within the World Trade Organisation. And I would also like naturally to congratulate all the rapporteurs who have been involved in this series of reports."@en1
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