Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-02-14-Speech-2-418-000"
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"en.20120214.20.2-418-000"2
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"Mr President, allow me to clarify a number of aspects that have been raised here.
Thank you very much for these clarifications. I think that my colleague Štefan Füle will give you some more information on the non-agricultural aspects that you also raised in your speeches.
Firstly, some of you spoke about unfair competition and the lack of impact studies. I will give you two figures: tomato production in the European Union totals 6 million tonnes per year. The concessions we are offering Morocco under this agreement involve increasing the quota by 52 000 tonnes, which represents 0.8% of tomato production in the European Union. Moreover, with the entry price system and this quantity being allocated to specific months, we are protecting the European market from Moroccan tomatoes between June and September, when production reaches its peak in the European Union. For the rest of the year this quantity is divided between the remaining months.
I had also spoken about the entry prices, Mrs Herranz García and Mr Mato Adrover, and I listened to your comments and those of the Agriculture Ministers of the countries involved. That is why I proposed aligning the system for calculating entry prices with the European Union’s existing taxation system, precisely to avoid small quotas or small quantities of certain products, which are more advantageous, from resulting in all transport being calculated on that basis.
It was in order to eliminate that type of problem that we proposed improving the entry price calculation system. I can assure you that we are also going to monitor the way in which the Member States carry out customs checks at their borders once this change is made.
Some of you said that this agreement is going to benefit the multinationals rather than small farms, but I do not know if a trade agreement can encourage the development of a multinational or an operating model. You know that in the European Union these types of guidelines are laid down by our agricultural policy. Morocco also has its own agricultural policy and during the negotiations on this agreement it presented to us its Green Plan, in which the Moroccan Government has at least expressly agreed to provide support for small farms, too.
You also mentioned land monopolies. According to the information we have received from the Moroccan Government, and this is clearly set out in the Green Plan, too, foreigners’ access to land is limited to 100 000 hectares in Morocco and individual farms can be no larger than a few thousand hectares. In any case, Mr Bové, that is what the Moroccan Government has told us.
As regards respect for sanitary standards, as I said in my initial speech, we will ensure during border checks that products from Morocco, and from other parts of the world, comply with our sanitary and phytosanitary standards. All of the food safety standards imposed on our producers are thus applied to Moroccan producers and, indeed, the recent inspections by the EU Food and Veterinary Office in Morocco demonstrate that it now has the capacity to carry out these checks through the institutions that it has set up. Our technical assistance programmes in Morocco also focus on capacity-building for the future.
You mentioned, too, the impact on the environment, and water consumption in particular. The information we have available indicates that the average water consumption for one kilogram of tomatoes in Morocco is 47 litres, while 45 litres are used in the European Union. That figure is therefore not too far from the European Union average, or at least that is the figure we have, Mr Bové. With the drip-feed technological system that Morocco hopes to develop under its Green Plan, as far as we are aware, that consumption could be reduced further.
Once again, however, we cannot use an agreement to impose on a government choices that are its responsibility. I believe that, if we respect the self-determination of a state such as Morocco, we must have faith in the information it gives us when taking decisions, including decisions on an agreement."@en1
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