Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I am pleased to present to you today the motion for a resolution on a mid-term review adopted by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development on 21 October. Without wishing to give a complete history of the various stages of the common agricultural policy and subsequent reviews carried out by the European Union, allow me nevertheless to remind you that the European Council, at the Berlin Summit, set out the applicable guidelines for the period 1999-2006. It also introduced amendments with regard to certain common organisations of the market, in particular the cereal, beef and milk COMs. I would remind you that the European Council asked the Commission to present a report in 2002 on changes in agricultural spending, accompanied, where necessary, by the appropriate proposals. It is within this context that the European Commission sent a proposal for a reform of the common agricultural policy to Parliament and the Council, which was presented by Commissioner Fischler on 10 July this year. Discussions within the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development therefore took place within this context, resulting in the drafting of the resolution I have the honour of presenting to you today. The debate was extremely comprehensive. As we can see from the 388 amendments tabled by the members of the committee, the compromise we were able to achieve required a great deal of effort from all concerned, whatever their political leanings or the national interests they represent. The vote, which was won by a substantial majority, shows, if this were necessary, its members’ concern to go beyond political and national divisions in order to present comments capable of influencing the debates. The objective of this resolution is threefold. First and foremost, its aim is to reiterate the fundamental principles of the common agricultural policy, in particular financial solidarity, the need for a fair income for producers and the maintenance of border protection in order to prevent distortions of competition. Its second aim is to define the broad guidelines for its implementation by paying more attention to the concerns expressed by European citizens with regard to the environment, health protection, food quality, rural development and animal welfare, while responding to farmers’ demands concerning remuneration for their work and the simplification of the agricultural policy’s administration, to encourage young farmers to work in the sector. Its third and final aim is to frame the CAP review in a long-term perspective in order to make market management mechanisms more comprehensible for farmers, and more generally for the agri-food sector, and enable them to make long-term investments. That is why the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development feels that, without calling into question the powers of the other committees concerned, any adaptation of the CAP must take place within a long-term budgetary perspective which must, in any case, go beyond 2006, the year in which new guidelines will have to be negotiated. The Council now also shares this concern. The fact that the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and the Council take the same view shows how important it is to maintain a strong common agricultural policy which is seen by all our citizens to be implemented equitably, and which we now need to endorse. With regard to the resolution proposed, I shall first consider market management aid. The European Commission’s approach, designed to decouple direct aid to producers, simplifies the management of this aid, but will also lead to the eventual dismantling of any market management measures. That is why the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development suggests partial decoupling. Furthermore, this step should not cause production prices to fall. Lastly, the suggested proposals to lower intervention prices do not appear necessary in the current context. Establishing partial decoupling in the work of the committee would allow producers to receive a fixed sum of basic aid per farm or per hectare, calculated on past figures but restricted to a maximum figure of EUR 10 000. The second element of the resolution is the reinforcement of the second pillar, in order to support certain policies relating to rural development. The resolution emphasises flexibility, which is crucial to implementing rural development policies, and which allows account to be taken of the concerns expressed at regional level. The third guideline concerns the need for strict compliance by producers who receive Community aid, under both the first and the second pillar, with the principles laid down by European directives in the field of environmental protection and animal welfare. Lastly, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development wanted, by means of its resolution, to strengthen the position of the European Union in future negotiations, by taking account of the dynamics of enlargement, by emphasising in particular the need for coherence between proposals for a mid-term review and agricultural supply to the candidate countries, in order to allow for better integration of these countries, while highlighting the margins for manoeuvre provided by WTO negotiations. The Commissioner reminded us of all this within the Committee on Agriculture at our meeting of 5 October and the European Commission should soon submit legislative measures which will have to comply with all of these restrictions. Our role is to study them and listen to the Commission when it proposes them, and we shall assume our responsibilities in Parliament. That is why I would ask the House to adopt the resolution tomorrow.

Political group: PPE-DE