Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-03-09-Speech-2-390"
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"en.20040309.14.2-390"2
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"Mr President, most farmers in Portugal are worried at these Commission proposals on reforming the common organisation of the markets in Mediterranean produce such as oil, tobacco and cotton. These are bad proposals, both because they uphold the discrimination against specifically Mediterranean produce, which has always received poor treatment at the hands of the CAP, and also because they provide an incentive for farmers to abandon production, by decoupling aid and by failing to increase the appropriations and mechanisms to regulate the market, which would enable us to remedy any potential injustices in the distribution of aid amongst countries, amongst forms of production and amongst producers.
As a matter of fact, the stated objective of last July’s CAP reform is to make budgetary savings, more specifically of EUR 113 million in annual savings by 2013, and also to ensure the liberalisation of farming in the WTO negotiations. This is an unacceptable position.
The vast majority of Mediterranean production is located in the cohesion countries and in the least-favoured regions, and is extremely labour-intensive. I am talking about olive and tobacco farming for example, and these are often the main source of income in these regions. They therefore deserve fair treatment from the Commission.
It is unacceptable that no account is taken of the social and environmental consequences, particularly in mountainous regions and in other least-favoured areas, as is the case in Portugal, where very few alternatives to these crops of olive oil, tobacco and cotton exist and where the production of fruits, vegetables and wines is experiencing serious difficulties. It is unacceptable that the Commission takes no account of the specific characteristics of Portugal’s situation, or even of the 1998 decision approving the planting of 30 000 new hectares of olive groves with the right to aid for modernising the sector. It is unacceptable that refunds for olive oil used in preserves should be brought to an end and national monitoring agencies closed down, insisting on a policy that undermines the quality of oil, by not banning the blending of olive oil with other vegetable oils and by allowing misleading labelling for products that are not genuinely oil. Equally serious is the Commission’s proposal for the tobacco sector, which loses part of its current aid in conditions that jeopardise the continuity of production and industry, resulting in unemployment and an increase in exports from outside the Union. The situation of cotton is also unacceptable because the amount of land eligible for aid is set at a derisory 360 hectares."@en1
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