Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start with warm thanks to Mr Garot for his own-initiative report on trends in agricultural incomes in the European Union. Speaking personally, I want to thank him especially for his frank and constructive cooperation in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development. The Member States are currently engaged in implementing as part of their national policies the Luxembourg Conclusions on reform of the common agricultural policy. Our starting point is that, in accordance with the Brussels Conclusions, the agricultural budget was capped. The funds available must from now on be shared out among farmers in the EU of 25 rather than only in the EU of 15, and moreover, must in future be more discriminatingly applied than was previously the case, so that funds from the first pillar – direct payments, in other words – are to be moved to the second pillar, to rural development. This is something that all of us in this House have always demanded. Mr Garot’s report represents an outstanding assessment of the situation in that it analyses, in the light of enlargement, the factors on which agricultural incomes are currently dependent. The Group of the European People’s Party takes the view that there are fundamental objectives to be achieved by means of the common agricultural policy. They are as follows: firstly, to guarantee a fair level of income for those who work in agriculture. Secondly, by stabilising incomes, it must maintain agricultural activity throughout the whole area of the European Union. It is for that reason that we believe, firstly, that the retention of the level of public subsidies for agriculture is justified, in particular to reward the multifunctional services it renders to society and to ensure that farmers remain present in all regions, as is provided for in the first pillar. Secondly, we believe there is justification for the Community Budget guaranteeing employment, especially in less-favoured rural areas, and for farms to be rewarded for adaptation to society’s new demands, which is what we understand by the second pillar. In the hope of turning these principles into reality, we in the Group of the European People’s Party have tabled, in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, a number of amendments, to which – as I mentioned at the start of my speech – we have been able to secure the rapporteur’s agreement. For example, our specific proposals include the introduction of a system of disaster payments, which is already the practice in other great agricultural nations. We specifically demand that a large proportion of the funds available remain, insofar as possible, in the hands of farmers. It necessarily follows that we are in favour of the norm laid down in the Luxembourg Conclusions – in other words, the single farm payment – being applied when they are implemented at national level. Our final demand is that no major distortions of competition within European agriculture should be allowed to result in the event of the exemption under Article 58 being chosen. Let me conclude by saying that we have to bear in mind that competitiveness and multifunctionality must, again and again, be subjected to scrutiny and assessed, and that due regard must be paid to development. Without an adequate income, no farmer will be able to perform his tasks in producing food and in caring for the Garden of Eden that we still – thank heaven! – have here in Europe, in a professional manner and in line with good practice. We must therefore take the funds available in the agriculture budget and apply them, in a Europe of 25 Member States, in such a way that the competitiveness of working farmers in the market is supported. We must never lose sight of the need to guarantee young farmers a start and to offer them good prospects. These, more than ever, are the challenges we must take up. The common agricultural policy adopted in June 2003 opens up interesting ways of doing this.

Political group: PPE-DE