Commissioner, once again, the report submitted by the European Commission on the operation of the common organisation of the market in fruit and vegetables, with a view to a future reform, is a disappointment. It is not only a disappointment to Parliament, because it adopts almost none of the recommendations of the requests contained in the Resolution of 26 October 2000, but it is also a disappointment to the whole production sector. The report does not adopt the work and the suggestions of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development or those of Parliament itself, despite the fact that Commissioner Fischler stated a while ago that these would be taken into consideration. The report is incomplete: it fails to present practical solutions and nor does it make an in-depth study of the situation. Neither time nor energy has been expended on it and, I repeat, it is a disappointment. No solutions have been suggested for a sector which, in some parts of the European Union, is responsible for 25% of total agricultural output and provides the most employment. Are you aware, Commissioner, that out of every EUR 6 received by a fruit and vegetable producer in southern Europe, only EUR 0.012 comes from the European Union? Do you think that this can be called a genuine common organisation of the market or a real system of support? Is the Commission aware of this sector’s capacity for absorbing employees, particularly labour from the Maghreb, and does it realise, furthermore, that this sector has been more badly affected than any other by the liberalisation of trade with the countries from which these workers come? Do you not think that if it can find work for so many people – in objective 1 territories – we should take this into consideration and support the sector wholeheartedly instead of continuing to force farmers to bear the whole burden? Commissioner, please undertake the necessary reforms that will provide real and unequivocal support for fruit and vegetable producers’ organisations. Please give real support, which has until now been lacking and which will enable these to increase not production, but the already high levels of food quality and safety and which will resolve the environmental problems affecting the sector. Please use the proposed reform to facilitate the concentration of supply in the face of distribution monopolies, the operators who dominate the market and who set their own prices and conditions. Please propose solutions that put an end to the problems of the operational programmes and funds, the excessive bureaucracy and the harmful consequences of trade agreements with third countries. Commissioner, how many times must we in Parliament repeat that the nut sector requires a definitive solution? How many times must we request that, until the reform of the market in the form of aid per hectare takes place, the improvement plans for the nut sector, which are crucial to preserving rural life in some very underdeveloped areas, which have no real alternatives, be extended? Commissioner, let us not make things so easy for the United States, Turkey or China. Let us protect our farmers and the nuts they grow, at least to the same degree to which these countries protect their farmers and crops. For months now, uncertainty has reigned in the production sector. In Andalusia, people have been shouting slogans such as ‘We won’t swap fish for tomatoes’ in an allusion to the agricultural concessions made to producers from the Maghreb during the fisheries negotiations. The Commission has already ensured that we will not have fish and is now on the way to ensuring that we will not have tomatoes either.

Political group: Verts-ALE