Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-02-16-Speech-3-404-000"
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"en.20110216.15.3-404-000"2
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"Madam President, thank you for inviting the Hungarian Presidency to participate in this debate on rising food prices.
Decisions are about to commence on the future orientation of the EU development policy based on the Green Paper on EU development policy in support of inclusive growth and sustainable development. With the Green Paper process, the Commission takes the initiative of attributing priority to economic growth generation, agriculture and food security in development cooperation in order to achieve inclusive and sustainable development in developing countries on the grounds of pro-poor solutions. Given the rising food prices and rapid population growth, enhancing developing countries’ own food production capacities is of paramount importance.
We also welcome the new impetus given by the G20 Seoul summit to the WTO Doha development agenda. The EU would give full backing to a deal which would make a significant contribution to providing stability by getting rid of export subsidies and prohibiting export restrictions. The latter only serve to exacerbate price volatility and have exactly the opposite effect of the one desired.
Let me now come back to the issue of financial speculation. The extent to which it contributes to price volatility is unclear, but there is a good reason to enhance transparency on the commodity markets. The French Presidency of the G20 has identified this as a priority for the coming year. The Hungarian Presidency of the EU is ready to work shoulder to shoulder with the French Presidency of the G20 to achieve concrete results. The Hungarian Presidency is fully committed to working with you towards a first reading agreement on the Commission proposal on over-the-counter derivatives.
The world’s poor and hungry deserve an adequate and lasting response to their worries about rising food prices. The European Union has been at the forefront in efforts to tackle the issue since the first crisis three years ago, but more needs to be done. The Council remains fully committed to a collective and coherent response, both at EU and international level. I am sure we can count on your support in all our efforts.
Thank you very much for your attention.
For a second time in three years, the issue is on the agenda. Once again, rising food prices are causing social unrest and political instability in several countries. Families in the poorest regions of the world are in difficulty. Moreover, the Food and Agriculture Organisation tells us that the outlook is not good, with prices set to rise further this year as a result of adverse climatic conditions. This is a pressing issue. It was discussed between Agriculture Ministers and WTO Director-General Lamy in Berlin on 22 January 2011, and once again in the Agriculture Council on 24 January this year.
The reasons for this latest rise in prices are complex and are a mixture of structural and temporary factors. On the demand side, we have more people to feed than ever before. On the supply side, droughts and floods have played their part in wrecking harvests, input costs have risen and this has all been compounded by financial speculation in the commodity markets.
So what can the European Union do to address this problem? We need to get our internal policies right, we need to improve global governance in this area and we need to make a real contribution to the most vulnerable. Now is not the time for complacency, but we did make some important progress in all three aspects as a result of the last food prices crisis. The Council, along with Parliament, is engaged in an intensive debate on the future development of the common agricultural policy. This is highly relevant with regard to global food security. Recent Council debates put food security at the centre of the discussion, asking the question how best to ensure that agricultural production in the EU will be both economically viable and environmentally sustainable in the future.
Let me also say that we have read with great interest Parliament’s resolution on the recognition of agriculture as a strategic sector in the context of food security, based on the report by the honourable Member, Daciana Sârbu. There are ongoing discussions in the Council concerning the Commission’s Communication of 18 November 2010 on the future of the CAP, and the Hungarian Presidency plans to adopt Council conclusions at the Council meeting of 17 March.
We hope that the discussions concerning the legislative proposals scheduled to come out in the second semester of 2011 will lead to concrete progress. We have made important progress towards a more coordinated and long-term international response to world food security. We are a long way from reaching the Millennium Development Goal to halve the world’s hungry people by 2015. Hunger and food insecurity remain a reality for a billion people, but one of the UN’s recent achievements, following much work by the EU, has been the creation of the global partnership for agriculture, food security and nutrition. This is being implemented by the revitalised Committee on World Food Security in the FAO.
The EU has also been spearheading the renewal and modernisation of the Food Aid Convention in order to better contribute to world food security and to improve the ability of the international community to deliver food assistance to the most vulnerable populations. This is the way forward in order to enhance global governance in this area.
From a food security perspective, I would like to remind you of the Commission’s Communication on humanitarian food assistance, adopted at the end of March 2010, and the subsequent Council Conclusions in mid-May 2010, thus outlining a new policy framework for EU humanitarian action to strengthen efforts to tackle food insecurity in humanitarian crises. The Commission’s Communication on assisting developing countries in addressing food security challenges, also adopted last year, called at the same time for a new common food security policy framework, further strengthening EU leadership in the global food security agenda and improving the effectiveness of EU assistance. To this end, the Commission and Member States are jointly developing an implementation plan to translate this policy framework into concrete actions on the ground.
Let me also mention the EU’s EUR 1 billion food facility, which was agreed by Parliament and the Council. We are in the third year of operation of this instrument which helps farmers in the developing world to increase agricultural production capacity. This is a tangible sign of our determination to bring real assistance to the most vulnerable."@en1
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