Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-10-23-Speech-4-164"
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"en.20031023.5.4-164"2
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"Mr President, I hereby state from the outset that, if the Commission's new proposals are implemented, they will be the
for Mediterranean products. The Greek countryside and three of the country's basic products, which are grown by 75% of farmers, will receive a mortal blow so as to serve the new plans and commitments of the CAP, the WTO and the enlargement of the European Union, in other words the instructions of big business and the multinationals, which are ordering that tobacco farming be wiped out, cotton farming be cut back, olive oil farming be abandoned, products in which the European Union is highly deficient. They are indifferent to the consequences, which will be painful not just for the farmers, but also for workers in processing, warehouses and so on, as well as for anyone with professional connections with these products and numerous small- and medium-sized businesses active in these sectors.
The Commission is cruelly proposing with no turning back to abolish tobacco farming and subsidies by 2013. The chronicle of a death announced before Gothenburg. On the pretext of protecting health, it is wiping out European tobacco farming, tobacco farmers and, for Greece, all the activity surrounding the farming, trading and processing of tobacco which, as you know, is concentrated mainly on small lots in problematic mountain areas. The highest hypocrisy and cynicism, given that it does not at the same time propose to abolish the European tobacco industries which, of course, will continue to import raw tobacco unimpeded from third countries and to speculate by making and exporting cigarettes.
The European Union of 370 million citizens is being called on to stop financing 347 000 tonnes of tobacco, while the USA of 263 million citizens continue to increase their production of 586 000 tonnes, a large proportion of which is imported into the European Union. What is clear is that tobacco farmers will receive less money, referred to in future as decoupling subsidies but in practice they will be scant unemployment benefits and pseudo-compensation for abolishing tobacco farming from the European Union.
As far as cotton is concerned, so that the cotton farmers do not delude themselves, the Commission clearly states in its introductory report that the new reform of the COM is being carried out because the objective of reducing the price and reducing the cultivated areas and production, for which provision was made in the 2001 reform, has not yet been achieved. In two years, cotton farming in Greece has been reduced by 70 000 hectares, with a significant reduction in the price of cotton and in producers' incomes, due to the increase in coresponsibility levies and all the absurd measures for prohibiting and limiting the number of hectares cultivated and the return per hectare. 250 000 tonnes of two years' Greek production did not receive any subsidies and only obtained the international price which, as we know, is fixed by the multinationals. The same prices are obtained by the developing countries, which the European Union is supposedly doing its utmost for. However, the Commission is demanding even greater reductions under a new disastrous reform. With a 'because I say so', it has set a low ceiling of 34 000 hectares for Greece and similar cutbacks for Spain and Portugal in a bid to lower the ceiling even further with the measures it is taking. The Commission proposals for cotton even overturn Protocol ΙV, as Mr Jové Peres mentioned, of the 1981 Act of Accession of Greece to the EEC on the basis of which the guarantee of a minimum price for producers is laid down.
Nor does a proven healthy product, such as olive oil, escape the European Union's eternal anti-farming policy. Hypocritical and groundless arguments are being used to wipe out olive oil farming. A spirit of hypocrisy and mockery at the expense of olive farmers prevails in the proposals in the Commission's report on oil. Having stated that there is a serious risk of cutting care for olive trees on a broad scale, while those who wrote and inspired the proposals are obviously conscious of what will happen with them, measures are being proposed which will achieve what, theoretically, they do not wish to happen, in other words 60% decoupling.
These three Mediterranean products are victims of the mid-term reform of the CAP which is strangling farming. The catastrophic CAP is turning into an even more efficient mechanism for wiping out farmers, especially small- and medium-sized farmers. The constant reference to environmental protection is being used as an alibi to reduce farm production. The hypocrisy becomes crystal clear from the anti-tobacco rather than the anti-smoking campaign, at a time when the cultivation of modified crops is being promoted. These proposals are not open to amendment or improvement. That is why, if they are not withdrawn as they stand, they will come up against the combative, fighting opposition of the agricultural world in order to avert their implementation.
When you expressed your position, Mr Lamy, you said that you had also come to an agreement with the producers. The only thing you did not do was to come to an agreement with the producers, the real producers. You came to an agreement with those who have nothing to do with production, nothing to do with the products and, mainly, you came to an agreement with the multinationals."@en1
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