Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-07-03-Speech-2-681-000"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20120703.26.2-681-000"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Treaty of Lisbon abolishes the old comitology system, replacing it with a two-tier structure, consisting of delegated acts which include Parliament’s and the Council’s right of veto, and implementing acts which completely exclude Parliament from each step in the approval process. The existing body of legislation therefore had to be aligned to the new legal reality. We started this exercise with the three most important regulations all of which, Mr President, I shall deal with together, and which make up the heart of the agricultural policy: the regulations on direct payments, on rural development and on the common organisation of the markets.
The Commission’s proposals immediately appeared to be quite balanced and there were very few changes made by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development (AGRI). In particular, as regards direct payments, delegated acts must be used in cases where the basic act is amended, and in cases where rights are conferred to farmers or reversely where negative consequences may be incurred. In addition, given the spirit of the treaty on the common agricultural policy (CAP) budget, we felt that the financial discipline process could no longer be applied without the participation of Parliament. Indeed, maintaining Article 11 unchanged, with the Council acting on a proposal from the Commission, would constitute an unacceptable continuation of the Council’s exclusive right to implement measures directly.
As regards rural development, we believe that the Commission has done an accurate repartition between more general provisions establishing additional elements, and which therefore require delegated acts, and more technical elements that are very much connected with the discretion that Member States enjoy in implementing this measure, and which therefore require implementing acts.
By contrast, the proposed alignment with the regulation on the common organisation of the markets has proved to be more problematic, especially on issues connected with Article 43(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). The article in question provides that the Council, on a proposal from the Commission, shall adopt measures on fixing prices, levies, aid and quantitative limitations. This is an exception to paragraph 2 of the same article, which requires the ordinary legislative procedure (OLP) to be used for the common agricultural policy. As an exception, Article 43(3) needs to be interpreted restrictively, that is, only when there are provisions that do not form part of the fundamental policy decisions, which must be taken pursuant to Article 43(2) of the Treaty.
We therefore believe that the Commission proposal does not interpret Article 43(3) in a sufficiently restrictive way. The task of drawing up conditions and criteria for fixing aid amounts, export refunds and minimum export prices should remain with the legislator, which means Parliament and the Council, leaving to the Commission the fixing of amounts through implementing acts.
Once these three recommendations had been approved by an overwhelming majority in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, we began to negotiate with the Council and the Commission so that we could reach an agreement at first reading. The urgency was dictated by the imminent reform of the common agricultural policy, which we would not have wished to be encumbered by complex negotiations on institutional issues. Despite our willingness to negotiate, to concede something with respect to our initial position, and despite the outstanding activism first on the part of the Polish Presidency and then from the Danish Presidency, we were unable to find a compromise solution, hence the need for the committee to act efficiently and in a timely manner, on the one hand, and the new and stronger powers conferred on Parliament by the Treaty of Lisbon, on the other.
The main obstacles we encountered were from the Council, which wishes to systematically and horizontally eliminate delegated acts, even where these are legally required, in order to replace them with implementing acts which completely exclude Parliament. Such a position is unacceptable to us, because it means surrendering the new prerogatives that the Treaty has assigned to us, thereby severely limiting the powers of Parliament. Another factor that made negotiations more difficult was the attitude of the Commission which, during the negotiations, moved from a position close to that of Parliament to siding with the Council’s, leaving us alone in the battle to defend the most authentic interpretation of the Treaty.
We are now faced with the difficult negotiations on the reform of the common agricultural policy; we therefore decided to ask plenary to confirm the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development’s vote on alignment, so as to strengthen our position when we negotiate future agricultural policy. Indeed, only by defending the prerogatives of Parliament can we be sure to respect the spirit of the Treaty of Lisbon and, at the same time, ensure that in future, the CAP is more democratic and closer to citizens."@en1
|
| lpv:videoURI |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples