Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-03-11-Speech-2-298"
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"en.20080311.31.2-298"2
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"Mr President, I completely agree with Mr Nicholson that this is the first step in a discussion that is going to continue for almost the rest of this year and, therefore, I shall not go into detail on all the various questions that have been raised here today. I shall just pinpoint a few of the more important ones.
First of all, a huge majority is in favour of the idea of more decoupling, and I am very appreciative of this idea. The idea of giving a Member State the possibility to introduce a regional model is a chance for them to go further towards a flat rate and I have explained on various occasions why I think this is important.
In order not to raise any expectations, I will be very direct and very frank on tobacco decoupling. It was decided in the reform of 2004 to decouple tobacco payments. As we are now trying to go even further in decoupling, the idea that some of you raised of extending the coupled payment for tobacco would be a step in totally the wrong direction. Therefore, do not have any expectations that the Commission will move in that direction.
Ms McGuinness said that modulation was like robbing farmers. I do not agree with this approach. I think the rural development policy will need more money in order to meet the new challenges – climate change and the reduction of CO
emissions will be the most important ones.
We have to take into account, firstly, that the decoupled money will stay in the Member States and, secondly, that modulated money is co-financed by Member States and therefore you actually steer the money. You get twice as much as you deduct from the direct payment. This is an important message and we will come back to this in the legislative proposals.
Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf mentioned progressive modulation and the necessity, from his point of view, to include labour intensity in these discussions. I understand his point of view, but I can only say that this will be extremely bureaucratic and very, very difficult to manage, so I am very reluctant to enter into this discussion.
I might be wrong, but, personally, I do not consider the introduction of codecision on agriculture a threat, as I heard suggested. I consider this a huge and natural step in a situation where the agricultural sector is so important, both from an economic point of view and because this is important for quite a lot of people. Therefore, I welcome this change, but, on the other hand, it is important that we finalise this health check before the end of the year, otherwise it will be a Health Check for 2010 and then we are too close to 2013. That is the reason why, but, believe me, I am very happy with the changes that have been mentioned.
Concerning developing countries, the European Union is the most open market for developing countries: we import more agricultural products than Canada, the United States, Australia and Japan put together. This has to be taken into account when we talk about the agricultural sector.
I should like to say to Ms Harkin that I have been informed that she has tabled an oral question. This will be answered in writing and, therefore, I am quite sure she will get all the information she has been asking for."@en1
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