Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-12-03-Speech-3-249"
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"Madam President, following this and some of the other contributions, I should like to make one important point very clear. This EUR 1 billion is in no way a structural response to the problem posed by the food crisis in developing countries.
Of course, Mr Borrell, total vigilance will be required in order to observe whether the Member States or some of the Member States will not compensate for the commitment they have undertaken here. If this were to happen, it would clearly constitute nothing more than a fool’s deal, and we would undoubtedly have to continue our efforts.
I have just come back from Doha. I must admit that I am anything but wildly optimistic about the increase in public development aid. I must say that, when you leave meetings that have gone on for several hours – I admit that I sometimes have a rather volatile temperament but I am able, nevertheless, to keep my nerves in check – it can be difficult to put up with. It is difficult to put up with bad faith, with speeches that say that more public development aid is needed but, when a suitable text is drafted to reconfirm past commitments, suddenly there is no longer agreement and people invent all sorts of reasons not to undertake the commitment or, at any rate, to leave enough escape routes available to be able to turn their backs on their responsibilities and commitments in the most dishonourable way. So we will have to fight. Let us not be under any illusions about that. We shall have to accuse, expose, call on those responsible to face up to their responsibilities and, most of all – because I admit that I cannot put up with it anymore – undo, disassemble the double-speak, because the most terrible thing of all is that, at the very same time as they are making speeches of the most fabulous generosity, the speakers are treacherously doing all they can to stop the commitments from being honoured. We have therefore not seen the last of such behaviour, of that I am sure.
Mr Virrankoski, the aid must arrive at its intended destination, and I believe in all honesty that, in the case we are discussing, it will arrive. Nevertheless, I must in some way demand consistency in the struggle we wish to undertake together. When we say, the aid must arrive at its intended destination, we are sending the worst possible message to the public, who we need in order to help us encourage States to increase their public development aid.
We must stop saying the first thing that comes into our minds on this question. I think that the public aid that is dispensed by the Commission under your control and under the control of all the institutions whose task it is, does arrive at its intended destination. We may discuss our procedures, our rules, the fact that it is necessary to conduct consultations, audits, studies and so on, and that this has a cost, in a certain way, that it takes money, but, on the other hand, this is undoubtedly the price that has to be paid for genuine control and this is also the price that has to be paid for ensuring a minimum level of quality in delivering the service.
We therefore have to know what we want, but I do not believe that you can say that the aid would not arrive at its intended destination. In the case in question here, I can confirm that all of this can be verified and checked and that we have all the procedures with which you, moreover, and I are familiar. I therefore honestly believe that we should not be too anxious about this.
Mrs Aubert, I believe that, fundamentally, through your question or suggestion, you have given voice to what, for me, is also probably one of the negatives, one of the few real negatives, of the agreement, clearly, because, when considering the stability instrument, you have seen perfectly that what is taken from the stability instrument is money that is not necessarily available for other things and that, at root, this is, to tell the truth, a shift. It is, furthermore, what stops us, or, at any rate, what stops me, from claiming that this is an additional EUR 1 billion. We cannot really say that this is an additional EUR 1 billion, and Mr Mitchell has had the intellectual honesty to emphasise this. However, being completely objective, I nonetheless believe that this should not stop us from being happy because I did not really expect us to get this far.
So the EUR 240 million will be redeployed from the stability instrument, and EUR 70 million of this in 2009. The available balance will, broadly speaking, be at the 2008 level, which was EUR 135 million. However, this is not really an argument. All things being equal, it is of course an argument. If any new requirements were placed on this instrument, we would have a problem. However, as far as 2010 is concerned, the Commission has been invited, during the budgetary conciliation phase, to present a revised financial programme designed to ensure the ordered progression of the amounts planned for the period 2010–2013 while retaining an unchanged annual margin level. This revised programming will be presented within the framework of the annual policy strategy, and we shall naturally monitor it closely.
Turning to the questions you have asked concerning implementation: depending on the country, the choice will be made on the basis of criteria of effectiveness. Who might cooperate in this? Clearly, the international and regional organisations, the countries themselves, the States and the decentralised authorities, the NGOs, as well as the agencies of the Member States. Moreover, if the number of types of operators has been extended, this is at Parliament’s request. Personally, I admit that I was opposed to this but it was your wish and I can understand it. The criterion will be one of effectiveness, but if we want to act quickly, then you have to know that the best way of doing so is to work, as a priority, with the organisations set up for this very purpose and with which we can basically move more swiftly because we have rules for cooperating with these institutions that are capable of rapid action. However, I can assure you that we shall fully participate in this effort, as was decided by your Parliament and as was decided in the final agreement.
Personally, I think that Europe has shown itself to be equal to the challenge because I believe that we are talking here about the EUR 1 billion for this rapid reaction to save the crops. I should also like to remind you of the hundreds of millions of euros that have already been released and spent and that we shall continue to spend within the framework of our emergency humanitarian aid or emergency food aid. Europe has been extremely responsive in these areas. I just want to remind you – and it gives me pleasure to do so here – that, in 2007, Europe represented EUR 46 billion per year. I have yet to see another donor provide as much development aid.
As far as Mr Droutsas is concerned, to say that the European Union is washing its hands of this matter and that everything will be swallowed up by the businessmen is a view that I cannot share and that seems somewhat excessive to me. I am not saying that everything is completely wrong. For example, it is clear that we can discuss, debate the price of fertilisers and seed. We can indeed attempt to obtain an objective view of this question. It would probably not be a waste of energy, as part of the structural response, to attempt, at the level of the major international organisations – and this is something I am thinking about more and more – to negotiate with all these leading companies, which basically produce particularly effective seed but at an extremely high price. The same applies to fertilisers. There are initiatives that we should certainly consider, not least the idea of producing fertilisers locally, for example. There are places where this could be done. We could also create supply corridors that would make it possible greatly to reduce transport costs. I recently met a producers’ organisation to get an idea about what they were prepared to do, and we are also going to hold a meeting between them and our business forum to see what they can bring to our structural response strategy. I obviously see this as important.
It is, in reality, a rapid reaction intended as an emergency response in order to save the forthcoming crops, that is to say those of 2008-2009 – I think that we might more properly talk of those of 2009, 2010 and perhaps 2011.
Mrs Goudin, I am often in agreement with you but I have to say that I do not believe that protectionist policies are the solution in the countries that are facing this problem. In contrast I think that what would be interesting – because I believe that protectionist policies risk throwing everything off balance, or at least risk not responding to the problems at a regional level, although this is an economic dimension that I am not going to address now – where I would be willing to back you and where we are currently working intensely, in particular with the French Presidency, is on the following question: how can we organise the specific nature of agriculture in developing countries in the same way – we seem to have rather short memories in Europe – as Europe has done for its own agriculture? In Europe, agriculture has never been considered to be a type of production or an economic product identical to all other economic products. Agriculture has always received special treatment. I will not yet say that this is my definitive option but, when we consider regional common agricultural policies, these, in my opinion, are objects of study that it would be interesting to take forward quite rapidly with the aim, of course, not of bringing about protectionism but protection – something quite different indeed. I prefer the concept of protection to the one of protectionism and the anxiety it causes.
To conclude, I would just like once again – I hope that I have covered as much ground as possible – to thank you for the agreement and for your commitment. Without you, this would not have been possible. We have just convincingly demonstrated that, when the European Parliament and the Commission are able to work in harmony, it is difficult for the States to resist.
I would also add that the underlying idea is that, at some time in the future, naturally, this rapid response capability could become permanent. In saying this, I am certainly going to worry a number of Member States. I have therefore said that this is a rapid, intact response. It is not the structural response.
The structural response was basically alluded to by Mr Le Foll when he rightly voiced his concern that, for many years now, the share of the development aid budgets allocated to agriculture and rural development has been constantly shrinking. Clearly, I shall pass over the question of the responsibility for all this. I believe that, although undoubtedly acting in good faith, the international community has to some extent colluded in this withdrawal. Clearly, then, we now need to refocus on this issue. Progress has been made. I have already had the opportunity to present the figures to you. The ninth European Development Fund: four countries chose agriculture or rural development as a sector on which to focus or concentrate in their cooperation with the Commission. Four, representing EUR 650 million, in the tenth European Development Fund and, after much discussion, many suggestions and great insistence, we are now at a level of EUR 1.25 billion for 25 countries. Twenty-five countries is only a third of the total, however. There is therefore still work to be done.
I believe, following on from what Mr Le Foll was saying, that the idea suggested by a number of the European Union’s development ministers that, in five years’ time, the bilateral development aid budgets focusing on agriculture should rise from an average of 10–15% is a good one. Clearly, these figures will have to be discussed. This will obviously make structural responses possible. This EUR 1 billion is therefore not meant to act as a structural response, or at least, not on a large scale. It is intended for emergency purposes.
I must tell you that references to the situation of European farmers compared to the small farmers of developing countries present me with a moral problem. First of all, I do not think that it is right to compare them. I believe that the European farming community or, at any rate, family businesses, are facing a number of problems, but in the case of the EUR 1 billion we are talking about here, what was the starting point? The starting point was the idea that, since prices had risen, the compensatory mechanism intended to cope with falls in prices and the loss of income for European farmers no longer had any purpose. The idea therefore emerged of using these sums, somewhat symbolically, to allocate to these other countries what had been planned for European farmers but had not proved to be necessary.
I do not think that the situations should be compared. I most truly do not. Of course, I think that Europe’s consumers and citizens have the right to our full consideration and I regret, furthermore, that it should be so difficult to help those in Europe who are in need of assistance, in particular by means of the aid which is currently being debated and on which little progress seems to have been made.
We should not establish a link and we should not make our actions in favour of some dependent on our possibly parallel actions in favour of others. The two things are not the same; they are really not at all the same. First of all, we are not talking about the same levels of poverty and, secondly, I believe that we must remain consistent.
This is a fundamental question which, in essence, perfectly frames the problem of the consistency of European policy with regard to agriculture. The problem was raised by Mr Borrell. It is clear that the real issue at hand that we must now monitor very closely and that will require us to be extremely responsive, both at the level of Parliament – which I know will act in this way – and of the Commission, and even of certain Members of the Council, concerns our Member States, which have accepted this formula, along with a number of other Member States, which have been forced and constrained to accept it, because we have had to fight. I express my sincere thanks to Parliament because I do not believe that this would have been possible without it. At a certain point, I even thought that we would not succeed, so increasingly specious and at the limits of intellectual honesty were the arguments being advanced."@en1
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