Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-11-18-Speech-2-013"
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"en.20081118.4.2-013"2
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"Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am extremely pleased to visit this House again and to visit you at a crucial moment, since both Parliament and the Council are seeking a definitive position on this issue of the health check of the common agricultural policy.
At this point, ladies and gentlemen, I should like specifically to thank the Chairman of your committee, Neil Parish, for his active cooperation throughout this process. I should also like to thank your group chairmen, Lutz Goepel, Luis Manuel Capoulas Santos, Niels Busk, Friedrich-Wilhelm Graefe zu Baringdorf, Vincenzo Aita and Sergio Berlato.
Since we now hold the Presidency, we have regularly kept the Council informed, at ministerial level and at a technical level, of the status of Parliament’s work. For example, at our last meeting of the Council of Ministers in Luxembourg, I personally informed each minister, in writing, of Parliament’s position regarding each of the items we had to discuss within the Council.
Tomorrow, after you have given your opinion, we, together with Mariann Fischer Boel, will be able to seek a political agreement within this Council. Before starting, and I mean before starting, the last phase of negotiations, I shall inform the ministers of the outcome of your vote on the health check.
As ever, ladies and gentlemen, finding a compromise is not easy, since there are many significant points outstanding. These are divisive issues but we are determined – the Presidency is determined – to find, together with the Commission, and in the light of your vote, the best possible dynamic compromise.
The work within the Council has shown that, on many issues, we, as ministers, have similar concerns to those of Parliament. I shall take two examples: firstly, the search for increased flexibility for Article 68; secondly, the retention of exceptional market measures in the event of health crises, Article 44 of the Single CMO Regulation, which will be incorporated in the final compromise.
I can assure you, Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, that, among the most sensitive issues, there are at least two that are extremely sensitive: the issue of milk and the issue of modulation. In the Council, we have had debates every bit as in-depth, passionate and lively as those that I have heard or observed here, in Parliament. The same concerns have been expressed in both our forums.
This morning’s debate and tomorrow’s vote on the health check are therefore very important steps that demonstrate, once again, the vital role of Parliament, which Parliament must continue to fulfil. In any event, it is in this spirit, namely in the spirit of this enhanced dialogue, in the spirit of codecision, that, for several months, I have wanted to work on behalf of the Presidency.
That is why I am very pleased, as no doubt the Commissioner is too, to listen to you this morning, to answer some of your questions and to have this final discussion with you.
We are well aware that this health check is not a fundamental change in approach, as the reform of 2003 was, but a significant adjustment of that reform to a highly changeable situation.
In particular, it makes it possible to respond to a situation that was genuinely unimaginable a few years ago. Indeed, who could have imagined market trends since 2008, which have led to a drastic increase in agricultural prices and caused, as we are well aware, food riots just about all over the world?
This situation has shown the extent to which agriculture remains, for our European continent, a strategic asset, and how much the concept of food sovereignty makes sense in this context of increased volatility in the prices of agricultural products.
However, while the health check only concerns amendments, there are nonetheless many and they are complex, and they form, for us all, a package that is difficult to complete.
The Council has already done a lot of work at all levels to settle many issues. In this regard, I should like to offer my sincerest thanks for the valuable work carried out by the Slovenian Presidency, which has made it possible to make a very constructive start to work, particularly with regard to the Commission communication. Furthermore, ladies and gentlemen, it is your rapporteurs, Lutz Goepel and Luis Manuel Capoulas Santos, who have done this work on the communication regarding the legislative proposals, on behalf of Parliament. I should like to offer both of you my sincerest thanks for the quality of your respective reports, which were very thorough and full of proposals.
As you know, I have wanted to work with the European Parliament from the beginning. I also had experience of working with it when I had the honour of being, for five years, European Commissioner responsible for regional policy and the institutions, and, as I told you, I wanted to work on this issue in the spirit of future codecision.
I have taken a very keen interest in the subsequent work Parliament has carried out in parallel with the work of the Council, and we have all had what we could call a kind of enhanced dialogue between us.
In this regard, I have had very productive and regular discussions on the status of the negotiation, with the members of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and within Parliament – almost 50 hours of meetings with the European Parliament or among colleagues. At each decisive stage of the negotiation, we met with the Council, on 27 September and 22 October, after the vote in the Committee on Agriculture, and on 4 November to deal with the final phase of the negotiation and the proceedings of the October Council."@en1
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