Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-06-03-Speech-2-215"
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"en.20030603.6.2-215"2
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"There are two issues in relation to the mid-term reform before us. One is the detail of what is proposed and the other is the timing. Decoupling is a central tenet and is quite revolutionary in itself. While there are risks and benefits, I feel very strongly that partial decoupling proposals pose a far greater risk with no prospect of decrease in regulation. Beware of the various menus on decoupling! Even our colleague Mr Cunha's proposal for decoupling male beef but not sucklers in my country, Ireland, must come with a health warning, as it will collapse the price of calves and weanlings. Beware of partial decoupling proposals!
We need to be more market oriented to simplify the burden of regulation and also benefit from the WTO talks. However, I am not convinced on the second point, despite the Commissioner's protestations on many occasions that we have played our WTO cards wisely. Look at what happened in the last GATT round: the EU traded in a principled way our agricultural rights for other non-agricultural areas. We gave market access guarantees which we lived up to in the EU and in return we got no market guarantees. In fact, the US have used 9/11 to introduce the biggest increase in domestic supports in decades while we in the EU limited our production, and they returned to the WTO talks with a clear message of more of the same. Buyer beware! Nothing they have said nor any utterances from Harbinson's mouth leave me with confidence that we are going to benefit from playing our cards up front. In fact, the contrary is the clear message. What is the chance of the import tariffs remaining at around 36% reduction and not closer to the 60% proposed? There is little chance. The jury is out and we are gambling in advance of Cancun with the critical part of Europe's economic policy, the CAP.
The Commissioner is living very dangerously and some would say recklessly in the timing of his proposals. Modulation of EUR 5 000 is unacceptable, even with promises of further investment in rural development. Robbing a poor Peter to pay Paul is an inverse Robin Hood policy and is at best perverse. To introduce degressivity to support – at least in Ireland's case – a new dairy com (i.e. common organisation of market), i.e. coupled payments for the milk sector, is illogical, given the gospel of decoupling underpinning the mid-term review.
Each country has its own menu of special cases, be they young farmers, disease issues, early farm retirement issues, successor rights and those who invested heavily in the reference years. They must be looked after. We have a duty of care to farmers in the developing world which we can and will discharge in the context of a level world playing field but, as European legislators, our primary duty of care is to our own farmers and to a sustainable future for agriculture in the EU, the largest agricultural producer and the largest economy in the world."@en1
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