Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2014-03-10-Speech-1-094-000"

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"Mr President, firstly I would like to thank the rapporteur for all his hard work on this file. I acknowledge what a difficult task that has been, with 1[nbsp ]400 amendments to work through. Significant amongst those amendments – and quite unique, actually, in my short experience in this House – was a widespread desire to delete the package altogether and send it back to the drawing board. The main aim of this proposal, we have been told, is simplification. The whole five-file package of proposals is headlined by the Commission as an improvement, creating a common framework and making all our lives easier. The problem is that there is little evidence of any of that happening at all. Whilst I hear the arguments of the Commissioner, I think he has to accept and acknowledge that he has failed to convince us with those arguments. In many areas this proposal takes us one step forward and two steps backwards. Much of the justification for this regulation is based around the claim providing more certainty in food production, and yet it adds costs for farmers and the seed industry. For example, all new varieties of fruit and vegetables would need distinctiveness, uniformity and stability testing, which is not currently the case. All ornamental species will now be required to have a detailed, officially-recognised description, leading to unknown and unestimated additional costs. The need for registration is extended to forestry reproductive material with no justification whatsoever. It is clear from the impact assessment that the ramifications of many of these proposals have been underestimated or not considered at all. In short, I would say that the impact assessment is inadequate. The proposal fails to explain new concepts, such as niche markets and heterogeneous materials, and is unconvincing as to why these have been included. Normally reservations about a proposal would be dealt with at committee, with questions asked and Commissioners – hopefully – answering them, compromises negotiated and agreed – but this has not proved possible in this case. This is because of the sheer range of concerns and the real possibility that the final text which resulted would be a mixed and matched muddle of such proportions as to render it incoherent and unworkable: the exact opposite of the smart regulation principles that we have all been striving for over the last five years. This is serious. A new regulation supersedes all current national regulation. Current legislation implements the 12 separate EU directives. Member States will be required to create new penalties for infringements, and we simply cannot go forward blindly on that. I look forward to taking this work forward in the next mandate."@en1
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