Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-11-13-Speech-1-162"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20061113.20.1-162"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
"Mr President, before going into the content of the reports I want to thank the rapporteurs, Lutz Goepel and Jan Mulder, along with the Members of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development for their efforts in drafting the two reports.
I look forward to a fruitful discussion on this issue. I will respond at the end of the debate.
I should like to start with Mr Goepel’s report. I have carefully taken note of the Committee on Agriculture’s position, which is to reject the proposal concerning voluntary modulation and call on the Commission to withdraw the proposal.
Before addressing some of the report’s points I should like to recall why I presented the proposal and what the guiding principle was for the drafting of it.
The Commission proposal is a response to a request made by the European Council last December to present a proposal on voluntary modulation. Such a modulation was a means to enable Member States to transfer funds from the first pillar of the common agricultural policy into the second pillar in order to reinforce the rural development budget, an objective with which most of you would agree.
I have expressed my concerns about certain aspects of the Council agreement, in particular that it would apply both to direct payments and to market-related expenditure as well as the fact that it derogates significantly from the basic rules of rural development expenditure. The Commission tries to address those concerns to the greatest extent possible and ensure as much coherence as possible with the rules governing compulsory modulation and rural development spending. That is in line with the Commission’s declaration on the interinstitutional agreement on the financial perspectives.
With regard to some arguments in Mr Goepel’s report, it is said that voluntary modulation would lead to a distortion of competition. I do not share that view. Both the single farm payment and rural development expenditure are considered as non-trade distorting under the WTO rules.
It is claimed that there is no proper impact assessment. Firstly, in the short time available during the meeting last December that simply was not feasible. Secondly, it would have encountered methodological difficulties since we have no idea which Member States would apply voluntary modulation, and if they did so, we have no idea of the percentages they would apply. So, the proposal does not go against the principles of rural development, such as national cofinancing. We propose optional cofinancing as a compromise, to meet the expectations of the Council.
Let me now turn to the Mulder report on the proposed amendments to Regulation (EC) No 1698/2005. The text is a legal translation of what was decided last September by the heads of state and government in relation to the so-called ‘capping provision’, which is common to all structural instruments, including the Rural Development Fund, and is also reproduced in the general regulation on the structural funds. Moreover, the text reflects the non-cofinancing requirement for an amount of EUR 320 million as part of the Rural Development Fund allocation to Portugal, which was also agreed at last December’s Council meeting.
I have taken note of the draftsman’s position, in particular on cofinancing. I agree that the exemption of EUR 320 million for Portugal from the requirement of national cofinancing should be an exception in rural development, since cofinancing is a basic rule in rural development. It also means co-responsibility for expenditure and it is an essential element of the subsidiarity that is applied in the policy implemented in the various Member States or regions."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples