Mr President, Commissioner, pursuant to Rule 9(1) of our Rules of Procedure, I must first inform you that I am a farmer and as such I hold a direct interest in every aspect of the Agricultural Fund, such as this proposal for a regulation. The Commission is proposing a reduction in the minimum number of compulsory scrutinies for commercial and industrial undertakings which have received an agricultural subsidy from the Community budget, for the disposal of agricultural surpluses from the internal market or for other purposes. We have nothing against reducing this number, since the quality, the Community character, the selection process and the transparency of this process are, of course, significantly improved. We have been extremely concerned to see the high level of fraud and irregularities that beset operations whose control is covered by this regulation, specifically livestock exports and subsidies for the disposal of milk products and we have expressed this view on numerous occasions. As seen in the European butter falsification case, fraud against the financial interests of the Community is indissociable from fraud against the financial interest of the Member States, against public health and against farmers, in whose name these considerable amounts of Community monies are spent, but who are often harmed by them. According to information published recently in the press, the number of seizures by Members States’ customs services of falsified food products rose from 2 340 in 2000, to 4 106 in 2001 and Commission administrators have stated that organised crime is today focusing more on falsifying food products than on falsifying luxury articles. We are also receiving news of glaring shortcomings in the fight being waged by the Member States against food falsification, specifically in key fields such as wine, oil, and meat and milk products. Given these circumstances, we again insist, as we have done over the last three years, on the Commission’s significantly increasing its direct action to monitor fraud and falsification in the food trade and industry. We welcome, of course, the proposals to reform the CAP, which call into question the continuity of these intervention mechanisms, which have proven to be open invitations to fraud and falsification, being of dubious effectiveness in supporting farmers’ incomes, opting instead for direct aid granted according to the area farmed and to the rural work undertaken, using criteria of sustainable development. There cannot, of course, be effective control without transparent procedures and without democratic scrutiny by Parliament. A few years after the scandal broke of the more than 35 thousand tonnes of butter falsified by the Camorra and disposed of in Europe and beyond by milk product companies from various Europeans countries, we have still not been told which companies were involved and what measures have been adopted against them by the European Institutions, and to prevent this type of activity. When will this matter be finally cleared up? What progress has been made on physical scrutinies of these high-risk products that allow us reasonably to expect that we will see no further occurrences of scandals of this scale? I must highlight once again that the idea that only the falsification of milk products directly subsidised by Community funds can be considered to affect the financial interests of the Community is unacceptable. If this approach is accepted, whereas farmers that exceed their production quota for cow’s milk, respecting the financial interests of the Community, are heavily penalised, industrial concerns that sell milk products that are not made with milk would not be penalised, despite having a much more damaging effect on the Community’s financial interests. I also think it is important, where this regulation is concerned, to disseminate the list of commercial and industrial undertakings and the amounts with which they are subsidised by the Agricultural Fund to dispose of surpluses. I fail to understand why any competition process to adjudicate a commercial bid for tender or even to award a scientific grant has to be public, divulging the sums and the actors involved, but when we are talking about multinationals that receive sometimes enormous sums to get rid of food products, the public does not have the right to know who is receiving funds and to what ends. Democratising Europe and increasing the confidence of the citizens in their institutions inevitably require a more transparent attitude and equitable procedures. We hope that due account is taken of this regulatory amendment by both the Council and the Commission because it presents a unique opportunity to overcome the obvious shortcomings in this field of protecting the Community’s financial interests.

Political group: PSE