Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-09-06-Speech-1-102"
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"en.20100906.17.1-102"2
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"Mr President, I should like to thank the rapporteur for this report. Normally, own-initiative reports are tame affairs and we do not get a chance to debate the issues, so I suppose it is positive that we are having a debate about what is now a very controversial and sensitive subject: the issue of fair prices and fair returns to farmers.
The very fact that we have this report means that there is a problem in the marketplace for food, and that we do need political action to address it. I am concerned that there is some rowing back from that position over the summer months, but I certainly am not rowing back from my support for the Bové report. While I have concerns about elements of it, I support the overall theme, which is that we need action to address concerns of producers and to ensure that they get fair prices.
It is a simple fact that producers are price takers: they do not set the price that they get for their produce. Would that they could, and if they were wise, perhaps they should keep food in short supply and we would all pay a dear price for that. But they are not price makers, they are price takers, and they need protection.
I want to respond to some comments from the ECR colleagues. Two words terrify me, and they are: light touch. The idea that light-touch regulation works for the food sector or for the banking sector – I am afraid it does not work. Light-touch regulation that is not monitored will fail, so let us get away from that idea. The same goes for the idea that the free market works. We have to ask: who does it work for? As colleagues have said, agriculture – the food production chain – is different. It is not like any other sector.
I would ask those who say that the market works because it provides the lowest possible consumer prices to answer the question: how long can that pertain? And is cheap food going to keep going in the long term? We need action. I support the Bové report with some slight reservations, and I hope colleagues do likewise."@en1
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