Mr President, Commissioner Fischler, my personal opinions on the reports which we will be voting on tomorrow differ in certain cases, as does my personal judgment of the mid-term reform of the common agricultural policy. I have nevertheless accepted the compromise put forward by Mr Daul based on common sense, like a good agriculturist, because I consider it to be a well-balanced compromise. What I found hard to understand – knowing his abilities, both in technical and political terms – was, for example, the Commission’s proposal on tobacco, because the total decoupling system proposed would inevitably lead – and not just in my opinion but also according to important European universities – to the complete disappearance of production with the impact on employment which the rapporteur, Mr Berlato, pointed out earlier. Moreover, I cannot understand why, unlike all the other production sectors for which specific production-related payments have been maintained, or where the Member States have been given the opportunity to implement partial forms of decoupling, the tobacco sector is the only one where the Commission has decided to apply total decoupling. Health reasons, among others, have been cited, ignoring the fact that dismantling the production of tobacco in Europe will not contribute in the slightest to combating smoking. On the contrary, the lack of European production would be immediately replaced by more imports from the rest of the world. Therefore, we used plenty of common sense in committee to maintain a common organisation of the market in tobacco capable of providing long-term prospects for development of the sector; we sought to achieve stability of the budget for the producers and to achieve equal treatment of all the categories of producers in a new common organisation of the market consistent with the need for stability in the agriculture sector and with the continued production of tobacco in Europe, including for strategic reasons. With regard to the olive oil industry, on the other hand, the reform proposed by the Commission can be broadly endorsed. In fact, although I do not agree with the decoupling system, as you well know, I think that this principle is acceptable for permanent tree-based cultivation such as olive growing, provided that it helps eliminate a significant amount of red tape regarding the support system and above all, enables us to apply measures concerning quality, traceability, conversion and promotion in order to encourage further development in quality terms. We also used our common sense with regard to the olive oil system; we have secured long-term financial support for farmers; we worked on the right to historical payment with reference to the average of payments paid to an individual producer as production aid during the reference period, and above all, we have introduced and pushed for financial intervention in support of quality products, traceability, market monitoring, the promotion and strengthening of producers’ organisations and specific environmental measures. I believe that the proposal which Parliament and the Commission will put forward on olive oil will be highly beneficial for this sector and I hope, Commissioner, that you will accept the suggestions which Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has provided on the tobacco sector.

Political group: PPE-DE