Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-06-18-Speech-3-441"
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"en.20080618.30.3-441"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, we are dealing with a serious subject, namely the gradual disappearance of Europe’s sheep and Europe’s shepherds. There are a billion sheep in the world, but Europe only has 97 million, in other words less than 10%, and when it comes to ewes the situation is even worse, for there are now only 67 million of them in Europe. Admittedly the UK may create an illusion with its 15 million head of sheep and Spain too with its 16 million, while Chairman Parish’s Ireland is self-sufficient to the tune of 333%. France, however, has seen its flocks decline from nearly 13 million animals some 25 years ago to about 8 million today and this will decrease further to a mere 5 million by 2015. In France one out of every two legs of lamb consumed is sourced abroad. Even worse than that it is the lactating ewes that are disappearing.
Of course the causes are well known: massive increase in the cost of feed, reduced consumption levels, the difficult life of the sheep farmer, catarrhal fever, falling prices, decoupling of aid and, above all, duty-free imports of mutton and lamb from New Zealand. Some 227 000 tonnes arrive from New Zealand every year, i.e. twice the French production level. It is not a case of wolves eating sheep; it is a case of New Zealand sheep eating European ones. A century and a half ago New Zealand had 1 million head of sheep; today it has 40 million. Over the same period the French figure has fallen from 30 million to 8 million.
So what can we do? We need a major European plan for the sheep and lamb industry, the willingness to pay a subsidy of EUR 15 for each lactating ewe and a sheep subsidy that is 125% of the cattle subsidy, loans to help modernise livestock buildings, conveniently located abattoirs, a European risk-insurance fund for livestock farmers, an assistance scheme and, why not Erasmus grants so that young shepherds can go to learn their trade in Spain or Italy. Thank you, Mr President. If we have sheep we have civilisation."@en1
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