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mr president just a short comment on amendment no 5 |
unfortunately we are not able to accept amendment no 5 because we know that the council would not accept it |
the debate is closed |
we shall now proceed to the vote |
(parliament approved the legislative resolution) explanation of vote |
mr president as the applause for the rapporteur mrs redondo jim茅nez confirmed this is one of the most important measures we have voted on |
indeed in my opinion statistics are fundamental and in italy we are in the most terrible chaos as regards the statistics on milk from our cows |
therefore i voted for the report and i would like to express the hope that statistics will also be gathered on the number of pensioners in the fifteen member states |
many people say there are too many of them but i say there are too few statistics will allow us to ascertain their number |
for my part i would like there to be more and more of them because 'it is great being a pensioner' |
com in hops |
the next item is the debate on the report (a50083/1999) by mr xaver mayer on behalf of the committee on agriculture and rural development on the proposal for a council regulation (ec) amending regulation (eec) 1696/71 on the common organisation of the market in hops [com(1999) 302 c5颅0081/1999 1999/0128(cns)] |
mr mayer i trust that after the sitting you will offer us a tasting |
mr president i sent an invite for a beertasting session about three weeks ago and it was very much to the taste of all those that received and took up the invitation |
i have no doubt mr mayer |
mr president i simply wish to thank and congratulate mr mayer on the report he has carried out which affects all the hopproducing countries of the community and which in the case of spain affects my region castillale贸n in the le贸n area |
i agree with everything mr mayer has said |
the report has been unanimously approved in the committee on agriculture |
i congratulate mr mayer and i hope that he receives the support of this parliament |
mr president mr mayer was so charming that i would like to extend the offer by suggesting that we have that beer in bavaria itself not here |
i shall now come to the point |
hops are not a typical enough example for us to understand the importance of the common agricultural policy for farmers in the european union they do however show the extent to which it actually helps our farmers |
as mr mayer said hops are a traditional product which is particularly important to the quality of beer produced although production is very limited some 4 000 hectares of land throughout the whole of europe |
yet a sufficient number of farming families in the countries where hops are produced particularly in bavaria make their living from that product alone these families should not be left to the mercy of continual price falls neither should they be forced to desert specific rural areas because of difficulties arising from irregularities within the market |
there have been a number of changes to the main regulation relating to this particular product as a result of the market fluctuations and the changing needs of farmers the most recent being the council decision to set a uniform level of aid to producers for a period of five years |
this latest decision alters the obligations of the commission arising from the previous regime that is of having to grant annual aid and members states no longer need to grant aid for setting up production teams |
this development means that certain articles of the old regulation need to be revoked which rightly so is carried out in the new regulation for which we will be voting together with mr mayer' s amendments noting that the proposed regulation will not in any way affect the budget |
mr president i should like to congratulate the rapporteur on the report i can inform you that the group of the european liberal democrat and reform party will support the report when it is put to the vote |
mr president ladies and gentlemen i first of all want to thank the rapporteur mr xaver mayer for a valuable report and perhaps especially for his enthusiastic presentation of the hop paradise of bavaria together with the committee on agriculture and rural development for its constructive attitude |
i am very pleased that our proposal for changing the way in which the market for hops is organised has met with a positive reception |
the commission' s proposal is of course aimed at removing those stipulations which are no longer valid either because deadlines have run out or because of previous changes to the common regime under which hops are organised |
these changes must be implemented before the basic regulation is consolidated |
owing to the fact that the council has resolved that the level of support is to remain constant for a period of five years the commission does not consider that it is necessary to submit a report every year on the situation concerning the production and marketing of hops |
the commission therefore considers that article 11 can be removed |
according to article 18 of the proposal we shall however be presenting by 1 september 2000 a thorough assessment of the situation regarding the production and marketing of hops |
i am therefore afraid that the european parliament' s two amendments complicate the text unnecessarily and that the requirement to receive information each year is already covered by the new proposal |
this information will also be made available on the internet |
that is why the commission cannot adopt these amendments in this situation |
mr president firstly i would be pleased to invite the commissioner to kloster andechs in bavaria a place where seven different types of beer are brewed |
secondly i would like to make it known that next |
(the president cut the speaker off) |
mr posselt this is not a procedural motion |
the debate is closed |
we shall now proceed to the vote |
(parliament approved the legislative resolution) |
explanation of vote |
mr president before leaving for strasbourg the pensioners who took me to the airport asked me is there going to be a debate about beer on friday morning |
i replied yes certainly |
well you have to give an explanation of vote and say that we pensioners are in favour of the production and development of beer |
we are in favour not just because ten years ago the pensioners' party put forward as candidate for rome' s mayor the model solveig tubing who was born in berlin and was a great connoisseur and lover of beer but also because my own personal studies on beer show that drinking it makes you younger |
i know that welfare institutions and governments are against developing beer because this means that they have to pay out pensions for longer but as representative of the pensioners' party i am in favour |
extension of exceptional financial assistance to tajikistan |
the next item is the debate on the report (a50093/1999) by mr savary on behalf of the committee on industry external trade research and energy on the proposal for a council decision modifying decision 97/787/ec granting exceptional financial assistance to armenia and georgia in order to extend it to tajikistan [com(1999) 391 c5颅0171/1999 1999/0172(cns)] |
mr president i thought since i represent the bordeaux area that you were giving me the floor so that i could answer my bavarian colleague on the subject of bordeaux wine |
however it seems that you are asking me to speak on tajikistan instead and as i have five minutes i shall try to be as clear as possible about an issue that is perhaps rather esoteric and complicated |
it concerns exceptional aid to tajikistan which is as you know a small country located between uzbekistan kazakhstan china and afghanistan |
there is a history to this issue and really what i would like to do today is to close a subject that began in 1991 with a loan of eur 1200 million to the newly independent states when the soviet union collapsed |
the loan has been repaid by all of the states apart from three |
in 1997 three states were experiencing difficulties and were seriously behind in their repayments georgia armenia and tajikistan |
thus the parliament was informed in 1997 of a proposal by the commission which aimed to reschedule and restructure these three countries' debts |
it was therefore decided to put in place two types of financial assistance on the one hand there would be loans at the time eur 245 million had been earmarked for loans to these three countries and on the other hand a gift of eur 130 million whose main objective was to reduce the burden of debt and to improve the ability of these countries to repay |
1997 was also marked and this is the crux of the issue by a civil war in tajikistan a terrible civil war between the reigning power and the islamic opposition |
parliament then proposed on the basis of mr kittelmann' s report to defer aid to tajikistan and that is why two years later now that the situation has returned to normal we are being asked today to reopen the matter |
in fact although the situation in tajikistan has remained highly critical and worrying in terms of politics as well as economics it has gradually become more stable |
there has been an agreement between the different parties which has been implemented and universally respected even if security in the country is still subject to caution due to the presence of warlords and the powerful wave of wahabi fundamentalism in afghanistan |
in terms of economics the country has made great efforts under the auspices of the imf and is benefiting from a structural adjustment facility provided by that organisation |
we the european union are therefore being asked to reestablish contact with tajikistan and to implement a restructuring of the debt as today around eur 73 million is still outstanding |
what the commission is proposing is actually to repeat what was done for georgia and armenia which was to make provision for a new loan which would enable tajikistan to repay the previous one but on much more favourable terms in order to give this country some breathing space and to make provision for a gift of eur 35 million for the period 20002004 in order to reduce the burden of debt |
unfortunately i have to say that the commission' s proposal is extremely contradictory |
we are in fact being asked to make a loan of eur 75 million and a gift of eur 35 million and now we see that no more budgetary funds are available for donations and that in 1999 we only budgeted for the donations granted to armenia and georgia donations which are due to end in 2001 |
as a result and quite logically we the committee on industry within whose competence this matter essentially falls have been told by the committee on budgets that under no circumstances could we endorse donations which have not been budgeted for today and which have not been provided for in the financial perspective particularly in category 4 which as you know is already under pressure through trying to finance kosovo |
therefore the compromise which we have reached with the committee on budgets consists effectively of only keeping the loan of eur 75 million whilst agreeing a position of the committee on industry which i think has been understood by the committee on budgets that tajikistan should also be able to benefit from supplementary aid in order to reduce the monthly debt repayment of eur 200 000 which it cannot afford |
tajikistan is in fact the poorest of the newly independent states and the one that we absolutely have to stabilise because rather like chechnya and for other reasons besides it is a country that could endanger the whole region particularly because of its strategic position with regard to kazakhstan and uzbekistan which are very rich countries |
we have consequently tabled a series of amendments |
firstly amendments that endorse the donation then amendments which point out to the council and the commission their contradictions by telling them that it would be desirable to grant direct aid but by financing it under another line and here i am thinking of tacis and finally amendments concerning conditions monitoring the way the funds are used the political and democratic conditions and the monitoring of the parliament |
mr president commissioner tajikistan is not only the poorest of all the countries formed from the soviet union it has also been the one to suffer the most on account of the turmoil caused by tribal feuding which ultimately escalated into civil war |
the country failed to grasp how to employ the financial aid provided so far in a targeted manner |
the situation has only calmed down to some extent over the last few months once the warring parties had ceased hostilities and resolved that their next step would be to form a coalition government |
general free elections are set for march 2000 |
the international donor community which includes swiss organisations for the most part is now prepared to carry on where it left off delivering financial aid but with certain provisos |
now that the situation has abated and there are more favourable prospects for future progress overall the savary report now attempts to provide renewed support for the macroeconomic financial aid for this country in the form of loans |
we hope that this will make it sufficiently clear to tajikistan that it needs to improve its state machinery by embracing democratic development and undertaking the necessary reforms |
however the financial aid in the form of loans should only be granted if there is a real possibility of the european union being able to properly monitor the situation if the process of national reconciliation continues and the elections in particular the parliamentary elections set for march are free and democratic |
as mr savary rightly said this is also what we aim to achieve with proposed amendments nos 8 and 9 to which we give our unequivocal support |
if tajikistan' s creditworthiness is to be restored then the proposal in budget 2000 is also to be welcomed |
the rapporteur mr bourlanges has just confirmed to me that as far as this is concerned a commentary is to provide for a particular form of financial aid to be made available again under the tacis programme |
on a final note i would like to say that the ppe group supports this report notwithstanding all the associated risks |
it represents a renewed hopefully successful attempt to resume and promote economic and technical cooperation with tajikistan |
mr president the loan which tajikistan will receive equals this small and poor country' s share in an outstanding debt to the former soviet union |
as such this will not solve any problems within tajikistan |
the loan only prevents the outstanding debts from continuing to exist |
central asia the majority of whose population is turkishspeaking and a small part of which is iranianspeaking was conquered in the previous century by the russian tsarist empire |
this empire did not look for colonies far from home or overseas like most western european states but close by |
although they were decolonised in 1922 they have remained linked to russia in the form of federal states of the soviet union |
the boundaries drawn by stalin between the various linguistic and cultural regions in the ' 20s and ' 30s are now state borders |
this prolonged european influence means that we in the european union should feel especially responsible for the vicissitudes of the five states which appeared after the collapse of the soviet union |
the economy and environment are in a sad state of affairs in all fifteen states |
authoritarian regimes have come to power and leave little or no scope for political opponents |
by means of referendums and intimidation some presidents have their periods of office extended by ten years without there being rival candidates |
in this respect tajikistan is no exception |