Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, before I come to the Sapard report in this related debate, I would like to say a few words about the enlargement negotiations. The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development wholeheartedly supports the Commission's line in the agriculture negotiations with the accession candidates. We call upon the Council and especially some Member States to give their support to the course adopted by the Commission on agriculture. As many of you are aware, I have been a fervent supporter of reform in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development for many years. I will carry on being one in future, and we are looking forward to the Commission's communication on this issue with great excitement. However, one thing must be clear: the reform debate must not interfere with the negotiations. No premature conditions must be set at this stage which might delay the accession negotiations. Conversely, of course, the accession negotiations and the accession candidate countries' demands which understandably arise must not be allowed to impede the reform debate. The two must run in parallel, but must not block each other. We feel that this is a very important point. Naturally, there is conflict: some Member States are not in favour of any direct payments, while the recipient countries would like to receive 100% – and let me say to the candidate countries that they will yet again have cause to be grateful to the Commission for its proposals. On the issue of Sapard: while we spend our time arguing in the accession negotiations about the level of payments, we are failing to exploit the opportunities for pre-accession assistance that Sapard offers. We are pushing substantial amounts of money around as if we were a snow plough. Of course, there are reasons for this. I am not trying to apportion blame, but it is important to analyse the causes clearly and decide what else we can do. Of course, the decentralised management of the programme which we have opted for is a very demanding method of management. I am sure that money would have been paid out to projects much more quickly if we had had a centralised administration with management by the Commission. For sound and well-intentioned reasons, things were done differently. However, we must accept that we should have foreseen that these generous arrangements involving a decentralised structure and increased individual responsibility on the part of the accession countries were unlikely to achieve the rapid outcomes which were desired. We hope that there will be a major step forward this year. Unfortunately, however, we cannot make up for lost time. This is why the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development recommended to the Commission last year that since we have opted to manage the programme in this way so that it involves a learning process which will ultimately be of benefit to the candidate countries after accession, why not implement other elements of rural development which we have tried and tested in a European Union with fifteen Member States? Why not include a Leader-type programme, which we have christened INPARD? Now, of course, this proposal by the committee is being dismissed by the Commission, which tells us that we have run out of time and that we do not have the right legal framework. The Commission often uses these arguments when it does not want to adopt a particular measure! It may well be the case that if we now motivate the organisations and local populations by offering them a Leader-type programme and encourage them to develop their own ideas creatively in rural areas, things will not really get off the ground until they are full members. Nonetheless, we would win some time if we try to involve them pro-actively in this way. What is more, this type of programme might give us an opportunity to channel all the money that has been lost – not down the Swannee, I would not say that – back into the Finance Ministers' coffers. We are not happy with the situation, none of us, we know that. The Commission is not happy either since the Sapard funds have not been used in the way we wanted. Nonetheless, let us at least put on a spurt over the final metres so that we can see something for our efforts, and so that all the Member States – and there are differences between the accession countries in this Sapard programme – so that they experience the EU and so that the money which is urgently needed for reforesting around agriculture, and for slaughter-houses and dairies etc. can genuinely help them to attain the quality needed to make their products marketable in Europe. We must also make it clear to the accession countries that it is not only a matter of quality: once they have full membership, they must supply the EU market. We cannot make distinctions in terms of the quality of agricultural products depending on whether they are destined for the EU's internal market or for export. The excuse used by some candidate countries – that we should not get excited about it because they are not exporting to the EU at present, and are actually buying products in Ukraine and Russia – will no longer be relevant. We cannot accept it. This is why money and prompt assistance are needed. Money now being spent on Sapard and other programmes in the accession countries will save us money later when these countries are full members. Let us try and make the best of it! (Applause)

Political group: PSE