Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-09-26-Speech-1-206-000"
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"en.20110926.23.1-206-000"2
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"Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in an appeal initiated by African and European writers regarding the famine in the Horn of Africa it is stated that those suffering do not need sympathy, they need their rights as citizens of this world to be realised. Like people everywhere else, they have rights, which also include the right to food in accordance with Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In the Horn of Africa, 12.5 million people are currently being deprived of their right to life and to food security. In Somalia alone, more than 30 000 children under five have died in recent months. According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the current estimate of the number of people who are suffering from hunger worldwide is already over a billion once again.
In drawing up the report that we have before us today, the members of the Committee on Development were guided by two premises: the first was the question of whether the European Union is taking adequate responsibility to ensure that those in the world suffering from hunger have direct access to food – that can also be extended to clean drinking water and a supply of energy. The second was: how will the European Union ensure the necessary coherence between its policies in order to succeed in its development policy objectives on the basis of Articles 7 and 208 of the Treaty of Lisbon?
In view of the two Commission communications from last year on the EU policy framework to assist developing countries and on humanitarian food assistance, I can say that the Commission has laid down a number of premises that we as a committee support, but that we are of the opinion that the approaches taken in many areas are still inadequate. It is not sufficiently clear, for example, how the necessary coherence between all relevant policy areas is to be ensured, and how, in particular in international trade policy, the appropriate adjustments are to be made in connection with the reform of the common agricultural policy. One crucial deficiency that remains is the fact that the fight against hunger in the world is afforded nothing like the necessary priority status on the political agendas of international institutions, including that of the European Union.
Famines rarely develop overnight. There are many causes. There is no point in listing them all here. Our report makes them very clear. It is clear that climate change, speculation on the stock markets and price volatility, which we have to get our heads around, land-grabbing and unfair trade policy have a negative impact first and foremost on the very poorest people – on refugees, the poor, the elderly and vulnerable women and children.
In our report, we have focused on three main points. Firstly, we support – and we would like to develop this point further – a human rights-based approach as the general framework for food security. Enforcement of the human right to food must be at the top of the political agendas, and we need monitoring mechanisms in order to check that the right to food is being applied in practice.
Sustainable agriculture based on small, independent farms with low external inputs holds out the possibility of a solution in the fight against hunger, malnutrition and poverty. For this, investment in agriculture needs to be substantially increased. The same applies to specific measures for ensuring global food security, as well as to the fight against speculation and uncontrolled land purchase. The scale of uncontrolled land acquisition is far greater than previously thought. The latest figures we have received, in relation to Uganda, for example, reveal over 22 000 instances of people being driven from their land because the land has been bought up by British timber companies.
The third major point is that we need the appropriate policy coherence that we are calling for, so that, at the end of the day, we do not have a situation where we have development policy on the one hand, with funds being poured into it, and agricultural policy and trade policy on the other hand cancelling out precisely what development policy is trying to achieve. In this regard, there is still a great deal to be done. I would ask for your support for the report in tomorrow’s vote."@en1
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