Mr President, I must thank the Commissioner for being present in this almost deserted chamber on a Thursday evening. This House will end up as barren as the programme which you are presenting us with for nuts. I would also like to thank all of you who are here to debate the future of nuts in the European Union. I had my speech prepared, but having heard the reply which the Commissioner has just given us and the words of Mr Jové in his presentation, I believe that I am going to forget my notes and try to improvise in reply to the Commissioner’s response. The Commissioner is aware of the problems of nuts in the European Union and he is aware that we are dependent on a single supplier in many cases: the United States, on the one hand, in the case of almonds, and Turkey, in the case of hazelnuts. The Commissioner is also aware of the benefits – as Mr Jové has stressed – for the arid areas where all these crops are cultivated, and this cultivation is not improvised from year to year, since it takes a long time to grow an almond tree or a walnut tree. Therefore, Commissioner, I believe that we are facing a very extensive problem. When you tell us that there are structural problems of low productivity and high production costs in the European Union, we must ask ourselves whether we want a nut sector or whether we want to be totally dependent on outside sources? We only provide 50% of the supply, for the rest we depend on other countries. At this rate, we will end up with nothing. You tell us that there have had to be negotiations and that there is already aid from the COM in fruit and also within the framework of the rural development projects. Therefore, I would like to say that, in the COM in fruits, the operational funds are intended for those crops – for those fruits – for which there is large-scale production. In those cases, the operational funds – which are a very small percentage of this global production per hectare, some 1.5 or 2% – are a reasonable amount to work with. In the case of production per hectare which amounts to little more than P 100 000, I believe that the operational funds of the COM in fruits have very little significance and offer very little in terms of resolving the problem of nuts. With regard to the framework of the rural development projects, the Commissioner knows much better than I do that, in rural development, the second pillar of the CAP – which we all view with great hope and we congratulate him for having brought it up and united it in one budgetary line –, in the regions where these fruits are grown – which are basically Objective 1 regions in some cases, and Objective 2 regions in others–, the programmes developed there are LEADER programmes. In these LEADER programmes, and PRODER programmes in the case of Spain, where there are national programmes, which are organised from the bottom up, it will be difficult to consider a specific cultivation as being of strategic interest and as a strategic sector, when these programmes normally deal with problems of general interest. However, Commissioner, what we are proposing to you, and I believe that all the political groups are in agreement on this, is the partial continuation, not continuation sine die, but continuation until a certain date, Commissioner, of improvement funds and plans, because in some cases they have still not ended, and in other cases their objectives have still not been fulfilled. However, these funds are absolutely essential to the maintenance of the crop, as long as nuts are subject to differentiated treatment within the coming reform of the COM in fruits and vegetables. Commissioner, I believe that we are talking about a sum of money which is not especially large and which can be covered within the miserly budgets which, according to what your department tells us, are available for allocation. Therefore, Commissioner, the extension of these improvement plans, as long as they are organised, used, and allocated according to a differentiated treatment in the coming reform of fruits, which will happen shortly, I believe that this will resolve and calm the fears which Mr Jové has expressed, which are shared by all the nut producers in the European Union, as they communicated to the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, where they received our political support. Since these producers have the political support of this House, I believe that it would not be justifiable to deny them a few pesetas of economic support.

Political group: PPE-DE