Mr President, this report from the Commission backs sustainability throughout the economy, which primarily means reducing the consumption of resources and using progressive standards to put a stop as soon as possible to economic activities that harm the environment. If we are to do this, we must remove the barriers we ourselves have erected, which, in environmental policy, are mainly to be found at the level of the nation state. That agriculture's core activity is the production of healthy, safe and high-quality food is not a matter of dispute, but despite that – or indeed because of it – we have to be able to say that there is little disagreement among farmers that, in the interests of viable food production, plant protection agents should be applied to cultivated plants in order to avoid the reduction of yield or quality as a result of disease, pests and weeds. The public associate the word ‘pesticide’ with poisons in the soil, plants and food; for many of them, who are at odds with farmers, it has become a rallying cry, but the reality is quite different. Without plant protection agents, the cultivation of fruit and vegetables and the production of wine are not manageable, so the only thing to do is to use the minimum of chemical agents to protect the plants from pathogens, pests and weed invasion while at the same time applying more powerful biological and mechanical alternatives. I see it as a key component of a sustainable plant protection strategy that integrated cultivation should become the normal mode of production in society. This will minimise the adverse effects of plant protection agents right across the countryside. However, an ecological rural economy will not enable this objective to be as generally achieved as it has to be. To say that is to state a sober fact and is no denial of the need to support the ecological rural economy. There are certain specific things that I regard as necessary and deserving of support. Harmonisation of maximum residue levels in food derived from plants across the EU is indispensable in order to protect consumers in the EU's internal market. What is no less necessary is harmonised licensing of plant protection agents. The mutual recognition principle must be allowed in each Member State until such time as that is accomplished. That is what the promotion of equal opportunities in competition requires. With the present problems in fruit-growing and horticulture in mind, I urge that, before the substitution principle is introduced, the effects of the reduction in the agents permitted in the EU – from over 800 to some 300 by the end of 2000 – should be analysed. Existing notification procedures have not been laid down for anything like a sufficient period of time. As a result, we end up with restrictions, application provisions with time limits, or debt, the worst alternative solution, which is no sort of solution at all. Under the current scheme of things, manufacturers of plant protection agents are required to guarantee that their products meet the prescribed safety standards. Public scandals demonstrate the failure to consistently regulate these procedures. I am convinced that serious and genuine solutions will be achieved only when an obligation to label requires that the manufacturers of precursors give end users all the information that they need.

Political group: GUE-NGL