Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-03-10-Speech-4-013"
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"en.20050310.3.4-013"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as shadow rapporteur for the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, I wish particularly to thank the rapporteur, Mr Fruteau, and the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture, Mr Daul, for the excellence of their cooperation on the motion for a resolution on the reform of the common organisation of the markets in sugar. I also, however, want to thank all the other Members of the House who have made constructive contributions to making this motion for a resolution what it is.
On my travels around my electoral district in Bavaria, sugar beet farmers ask me why it is necessary to amend, root and branch, the market organisation for sugar, which has stood the test of decades. The farmers and workers concerned are very disappointed by the Commission’s proposals of 14 July 2004. I then explain to them that the market organisation needs to be reformed in order that sugar beet may continue to be cultivated in Europe in the future. What we want our motion for a resolution to achieve, Commissioner, is that sugar beet may in future continue to be grown in the European Union and sugar cane in its border areas, with sugar factories continuing to produce sugar. This concerns 350 000 farming families in Europe, and 230 sugar factories with an untold number of employees. The Commission’s proposals go too far; in many European regions, sustainable cultivation of sugar beet would be a thing of the past, and sugar cane would no longer be grown in the border areas. The only beneficiaries from the reform would be a few major sugar-growing countries such as Brazil, which, in contrast to the EU Member States, invariably produce their crops to very low environmental and social standards.
Our environmental organisations would scream blue murder if, in Europe – as happens in countries such as Brazil – whole rivers were to be pumped dry in order to irrigate land, and if hundreds of thousands of hectares of land were to be burned off, with the animals living there having no chance whatever of escaping the flames. Such a way of producing sugar cannot be the yardstick against which European sugar production is to be compared. The argument that consumers in Europe would stand to gain from reduced sugar prices is one that leaves me cold, for, although cereals now cost not even one-third of what they did 40 years ago, the price of bread has multiplied over the same period of time. The EU’s Council of Agriculture Ministers, at its meeting on 18 November 1997, described the multifunctional tasks of European agriculture in the following terms: ‘The Council believes that European commercial farming must be multifunctional, sustainable, competitive and spread throughout Europe. It must be capable of caring for the countryside, maintaining the natural environment, making a substantial contribution to the vitality of rural areas and meeting consumers’ needs and requirements in terms of the quality and safety of food, and the protection of the environment and of animals.’ If you want that sort of multifunctional agriculture in Europe, then you have to grant it protection accordingly.
We therefore call for imported sugar to be produced subject to the same social and environmental standards as sugar produced in the EU. We urge the Commission to comply with the demands of the ACP states and give consideration to how the EU, using a regulation for this purpose as part of the ‘Everything but Arms’ initiative, can continue in future to manage the quantity of sugar supplied. We also expect the Commission’s legislative proposal to contain explicit proposals on how to prevent what is termed ‘triangular trade’ being carried on through the least-developed countries.
Let me close by adding that I would not want to see a global market in which production lacked the environmental dimension. I do not want a global market that exploits people and entire regions. I urge you to give the motion for a resolution a broad majority, and thereby get the Commission to incorporate our demands in its legislative proposal."@en1
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