Mr President, I wish to express my personal pleasure at the fact that we have achieved a unanimous resolution on this issue and congratulate my fellow Members on this achievement. The issue of clementines is not an isolated incident, but is one link in a chain of tensions that exists in trade relations between the United States and the European Union. I shall not waste time listing them all, but I shall refer – as I did yesterday, in the debate on transatlantic dialogue – to the problem of hormone-treated meat, to the banana war, to aid for North American airlines, which has led to our own airlines becoming less competitive, and to massive export subsidies, which have been deemed illegal. The most serious aspect is not that this should have happened but that, apparently, we are entering a new era of protectionism, which has become evident on the steel issue, which we discussed yesterday, and also on the issue of clementines. I also wish to emphasise that the issue of clementines is, if possible, more serious than the issue of steel. Steel will have entry conditions imposed on it that will make imports more expensive; on the issue of the clementines, the borders have simply been closed. This is why I said yesterday that I shall be demanding the same rigour and the same energy on the issue of clementines as on the issue of steel, if we wish to maintain credibility and be able to hold our heads high in the World Trade Organisation. I wish to correct Mr Jové Peres, who has fallen into the temptation, in passing, of making the Spanish Government out to be the villain of the piece. The Commission has long been aware of this issue and, if it had followed proceedings more closely, it would have seen an answer from Mr Lamy in which he told me that, as early as December, the United States trade representative, Mr Zoellick, had a meeting with the representative of the Commission, who was fully informed of the situation, through the Government and because I had tabled a question on 12 December. But, when all is said and done, this is a piece of cheek that I can tolerate and understand, since you are a member of the opposition. With regard to the request that has been made, I agree with what the speakers have said. What needs to be done, first of all, is to compensate those who have suffered losses; secondly, to pursue dialogue with the United States because, as we know, a poor deal is better than no deal at all, especially when a good deal could take years to conclude and ruin our production and, thirdly, to initiate, as soon as possible, proceedings in the 133 Committee. I must emphasise that this is more as a means of exerting pressure and imposing negotiation in order to bring the United States to the dialogue table than in order to initiate proceedings that could drag on forever. I would emphasise that the Spanish Government – whether Mr Jové Peres likes it or not – started this issue in December, as Mr Lamy has shown. Therefore, look elsewhere for the villain and let us all work together to protect Spanish clementines, which is my only objective at the moment, as I am sure is true for the President, who – in his enthusiasm - has generously given me more speaking time than I was due.

Political group: PPE-DE