Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-10-10-Speech-3-207"
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"en.20071010.22.3-207"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, concerning the first objective of this Regulation, which is to comply with the obligation to publish information on the beneficiaries of Community funds, I think it is quite right that we should finally know who receives what from the CAP. This is a long-awaited measure, though it is not a question of stigmatising farmers but of creating transparency in finance, which concerns us all as taxpayers and consumers, and over which we have a right of information.
I even think that this publication could be utterly beneficial and improve citizens’ opinion of farmers and the payments they receive for services to the community in terms of supplying quality food that meets high production standards and in terms of maintaining the land and the countryside, for example. The publication of an explanatory statement for the payments made and the farm income, as the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development is requesting, will also be very useful.
I fully agree with the practical procedures for publication, defined in the report by our fellow Member, Mr Chatzimarkakis, which consist in setting up a European Internet platform linked to the Member States’ Internet platforms on which the names of regional aid beneficiaries and where they live are put online. In the case of public limited companies or private limited companies, the names of the investors and members of the management board must also be known.
I also support the evaluation reports requested of the European Commission in the years following the implementation of this regulation, which will be very useful, the assessment of the benefit of the centralised publication of information by the Commission, and the evaluation of the distribution of the funds, possibly accompanied by legislative proposals to achieve a more objective distribution of funds in the first and second pillars.
On the other hand, as regards the methods for accessing these data, I do not agree at all with the proposals for confidentiality or a barrier to entry which, in my view, would completely diminish the transparency effect of this regulation. If transparency is being introduced, particularly regarding public funds, I feel that everyone should be able to access the information, without restrictions. In practice, because the data are first published by each Member State then taken up at EU level, it also seems almost impossible to introduce a registration system, and in any case thirteen Member States have already made these data public without any restriction. I therefore ask you to reject, wholly or in part, amendments 4, 20, 21 and 23, which require registration of the identity and motivations of the users of the public data.
As regards the second objective – the tool to reduce or suspend agricultural payments when certain key elements of a national system of control fail or are ineffective – I think this is a useful means of taking action for the European Commission. But obviously it must be used in proportion to the nature, duration and seriousness of the offences. In the same way, the reduction percentage is cut if the Member State has gone some way towards remedying the shortcomings and increased if it has not applied the recommendations previously made.
I also hope that the requirement will be retained for Member States to inform the Commission on the way they have decided or plan to reuse the cancelled funds following irregularities."@en1
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