A4-0219/98

Resolution on the reform of the common agricultural policy (Agenda 2000 - Part One, Chapter III) (COM(97)2000 - C4-0522/97)

The European Parliament,

- having regard to the Commission Communication entitled 'Agenda 2000' and, in particular, Chapter III of the first part thereof, concerning the common agricultural policy (COM(97)2000 - C4-0522/97),

- having regard to the proposals for Council regulations concerning the reform of the common agricultural policy (COM(98)0158),

- having regard to its resolution of 4 December 1997 ((OJ C 388, 22.12.1997, p. 17.)) on the Commission Communication entitled 'Agenda 2000 - for a stronger and wider Union',

- having regard to its resolution of 4 December 1997 ((OJ C 388, 22.12.1997, p. 31.)) on the Commission Communication entitled 'Agenda 2000: the 2000-2006 financial framework for the Union and the future financing system',

- having regard to the report of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and the opinions of the Committee on Budgets, the Committee on Regional Policy and the Committee on Fisheries (A4-0219/98),

A. whereas the Agenda 2000 document constitutes the Commission's global strategy for the EU for the beginning of the new millennium,

B. whereas that document devotes an entire chapter to the common agricultural policy and the means by which the agricultural sector can handle some of the future challenges, in particular the new international trade negotiations and EU enlargement, but does not put forward a general guideline for the future of European agriculture; whereas there is a substantial discrepancy between the principles and premises by which the Commission states it is governed and their concrete translation into legislative proposals,

C. having regard to the Cork conference which defined the rural development strategy to be pursued in the European Union, based on a coherent policy for rural areas,

D. whereas between 1990 and 1995 over one million farms, most of them smallholdings, disappeared, and whereas between 1990 and 1996 the sector lost over 1.4 m in assets (in MPU), while the farming population is continuing to age and part-time employment is on the rise,

E. whereas, in the light of the new challenges facing humanity in the fields of employment, food, energy, the environment and water supplies, the EU should make new demands on its agriculture industry in terms both of its own development and of international cooperation,

F. whereas the enlargement of the EU to include the countries of central and eastern Europe, apart from being a historical and political inevitability (which is necessary to maintain peace, security and prosperity in Europe), signifies not only the growth of the single market in agriculture, with new trade opportunities for both current and future members, but also considerable budgetary difficulties for the EU, adjustment difficulties, particularly in the form of administrative, environmental and consumer protection constraints, for farmers and administrations in the future Member States, and difficulties in maintaining income and employment levels for farmers in the 15 existing EU Member States,

G. whereas the reform of the CAP is both a necessity arising from internal factors and a means of preparing for the forthcoming enlargement to include the countries of central and eastern Europe and creating the prior conditions for future WTO negotiations, but whereas, on this last point, the EU must clearly define the negotiating strategy it intends to follow,

H. whereas the margin for manoeuvre available to the Commission and the Council through the implementation of the agricultural budget (which in recent years has always been below the limits imposed by the guideline) must be able to be applied for the benefit of farmers and for the necessary economic restructuring measures in rural areas,

I. whereas Parliament will in due course draw up its opinions on the specific sectoral proposals for regulations in a consistent fashion,

I. Calls on the Council and the Commission to take the following general principles and guidelines into account in the course of the negotiations on CAP reform in the context of Agenda 2000:

Consolidating the European agriculture model

1. The objective of the CAP must remain a common one: it must reflect an aspiration on the part of European agriculture to reconcile output, people and land, based on a differentiated approach varying from one production sector to another. The CAP requires a genuinely alternative concept involving a radical reassessment of a number of mechanisms. It must take account of the distinctive features of all sectors and of local differences, and must not carry within it the seeds of renationalization;

2. The main objective of the CAP reform in the context of Agenda 2000 is to consolidate the European agriculture model based on, on the one hand, achieving compatibility between the economic dimension of agriculture and its environmental and social roles, as well as its functions for regional planning, and, on the other, the preservation of basic regional products and the production of goods meeting high food safety standards;

3. Producers' associations and cooperatives can make a decisive contribution to preserving the European agricultural model, provided their role is strengthened and developed to allow them to play a more dynamic part in supply management, creating the conditions for linking market policy more closely to structural policy;

4. Such an objective presupposes that the CAP must aim to re-create a greater degree of consensus in public opinion on the basis of closer integration with the other Union policies for employment, ensuring a basic balance between products, farmers and territories within a framework of competitiveness and multi-functionality; the new CAP must work towards global performance and sustainable development. Within this general framework:

- the concept of competitiveness must not be equated simply with the lowering of raw material costs which has for a long time characterized the quantitative development of an agriculture which to an ever-greater extent falls short of society's expectations, but should increasingly be equated with the supply of goods and services which satisfy society's changing demands by incorporating such aspects as wholesomeness and taste, local know-how which enhances regional characteristics, added value and diversity of supply - selling points which contribute to Europe's originality and give it an edge over its competitors;

- the concept of multi-functionality must be clearly recognized in the agricultural sector;

- the concept of food quality and safety must be regarded as an absolute basic value;

5. Parliament is aware of the need for the future agricultural policy to strike a new balance between shared management at Union level and decentralization at the level of the Member States and the regions, and that this can only be done by moving away from the existing 'managed' CAP model towards a 'contractual' model, with a rigid sectoral and vertical approach being replaced by a new horizontal flexibility; it considers that, in this context, a renewed contract between agriculture and society could lead to better targeting of public resources for the sector.

6. Such an objective also presupposes that public subsidies to farms should be dependable in the long term and that the justification for their existence should come from the people, in that they should meet the demands which society makes of agriculture. To that end, they must be less and less linked to production volume and farm size;

7. The objectives set out in the conclusions of the Luxembourg European Council, aimed at guaranteeing the conditions for the practice of agriculture, must be taken into account in future preparation work; none of them appears in the Commission's proposal;

Prices and markets policy

8. The objectives to be achieved by European agriculture mean that there is still a need for a prices and markets policy based on the CAP's three traditional pillars: a single market, Community preference and financial solidarity, without prejudice to the adjustment thereof to the current realities of European agriculture and society, the EU's international commitments and the enlargement process;

9. Parliament therefore considers the price reductions proposed for the cereal, beef and veal and milk sectors to be excessive and rejects the abolition of the intervention schemes for olive oil and draws attention to the need for a fundamental revision of the common organization of the market in beef and veal in order to ensure market equilibrium in this sector in the long-term;

10. The prices and markets policy must continue to ensure that both internal and external market regularisation mechanisms exist, in view of the unpredictable behaviour of agricultural production and markets. However, the intervention mechanisms will have to be adapted in a more equitable fashion between the various products (although without jeopardizing the specific nature of each individual product or the possible reform thereof), so that they become more flexible and efficient;

11. Parliament therefore calls on the Commission to carry out a study of alternative or complementary methods (such as, for example, seasonal and marketing loans and insurance schemes), so as to ensure that products sell steadily on both the internal and the external markets, on harvest insurance and income insurance schemes, so as to prepare the CAP for the new WTO negotiations;

12. Parliament notes the persistently repeated imbalance in Agenda 2000 between the respective degrees of protection and support for northern and Mediterranean products, and calls on the Commission and Council to put an end to this situation via the forthcoming COM reforms and through the structural policies, in particular by taking up the conclusions of the 'jumbo' Agricultural Council of June 1993;

Compensation policy and income support

13. Parliament agrees that the CAP needs to be reformed but considers that the production and sale of agri-food products should continue to be the main source of farmers' income and the best guarantee of sustainable development in rural areas;

14. The direct income support policy must take into account compensation for whatever price reduction is decided upon and must ensure that agriculture serves to order and to protect the environment and the countryside in all rural areas of the EU. Additional environmental tasks which adversely affect income must, however, be taken into account independently and separately;

15. Parliament considers the Commission's package of horizontal measures to be insufficient, since they do not correspond to the need to reinforce support for family farms and put an end to the existing imbalances in aid distribution. In this connection, Parliament believes it is vital to introduce the principle of downward modulation of aids at Community level, using such criteria as holding size, environmental factors, regional planning and the use of hired and family labour, and calls for the savings thus obtained to be compulsorily used to achieve a drastic reduction in the existing imbalances;

16. The compensatory payments and income support policy must be structured in such a way that it assists the less-competitive holdings in order to eliminate their adjustment difficulties. However, it should not impose on farms in the EU which are already competitive any unacceptable restrictions on the path towards greater international competitiveness, which has been recognized as the way forward;

17. In this context, Agenda 2000 must start from a broader vision of the compensation and income support policy for rural areas by proposing a coherent and dynamic scheme which embraces European forestry strategy, aquaculture, grassland policy and rural environmental policies;

18. Supplementary policies must be drawn up to compensate effectively for the structural and natural disparities of the mountainous and disadvantaged regions;

19. The subsidiarity principle, which already exists in the agricultural sector, should be applied more intensively so as to adjust public subsidy to the diversity of needs resulting from the variety of agricultural systems in Europe (which will continue to increase with future enlargements) and the varying ability of farms to survive and adapt in a more competitive international environment. This principle must be based on clear, precise, verifiable Community criteria and on an absolutely clear-cut division of responsibility between the Community and national or sub-national authorities, so as to avoid any trend towards the re-nationalization of the CAP;

20. Regrettably, the situation of young farmers is not mentioned in Agenda 2000, which means that proposals for the reform of the CAP deprive such people of any prospect for the future. The proposals relating to compensation payments under Agenda 2000 would result in economically and socially unacceptable losses in relation to young farmers' investment prospects;

21. The proposed compensatory aid for milk and dairy products must be considerably simplified and ensure that full compensation is given for the reduction in prices. It must also be guaranteed that this form of aid is compatible with the WTO trade provisions;

22. As regards the beef sector, the consequences for veal production are ignored and the important role which this sector plays in ensure the equilibrium on the beef market. Veal production should also be compensated for the anticipated loss of income, otherwise this production sector will become considerably smaller and beef production automatically considerably larger;

23. To prevent distortion of competition, grass silage aid ought to be introduced, along the lines of maize silage aid, in those areas where, on account of the growing and climatic conditions, it is not possible to produce maize silage;

24. The proposal for a single form of aid for all arable crops would make the production of oilseed crops uneconomic in most of the EU, and would fail to give even the slightest stimulus to efforts aimed at overcoming the EU's huge deficit in oilseeds and vegetable protein. An adjustment of the previous aid system can take place only gradually and must take account of the deficit situation in the EU;

25. The importance of aid linked to land and to the service role which farmers play vis-à-vis society should be considerably greater than that of aid relating to specific products. It should be possible to grant them in a manner appropriate to the location;

26. Parliament welcomes the fact that, in the proposals relating to certain aid schemes such as milk and beef and veal, the Member States are granted significant management autonomy by means of the national packages, which enables them to adhere more closely to their specific productive characteristics;

27. However, Parliament calls on the Commission and the Council to reconsider their decision to delegate entirely to the Member States (thereby encouraging excessive nationalization and creating the risk distorted competition) the environmental conditionality of income support, the variation thereof according to labour intensity and the limitation of payments as provided for in the horizontal regulation, which lays down binding, harmonized rules at Community level;

28. The need to re-establish a better balance within the CAP and to restrict aid to a supplementary role which does not replace actual production will require criteria to be established which will restrict the overall amount of aid paid via the EAGGF to individual farmers;

29. EAGGF aid must be used not to replace production but to supplement it and prevent distortions of competition. There must be no substantial risk to existing farming structures in the EU regions;

30. Specifically, the limitative criteria for the total amount of aid should take account of associative forms of agriculture, especially the existence of cooperatives;

31. Since there are no absolute criteria, the one which is regarded as being the most consistent with the CAP's land-use and employment role is the establishment of a limit per Manpower Unit/Year (MPU). The fact that MPUs are defined differently according to the type of farming system in operation could mean that this limit comes to have as many values as there are standard farming systems (based on the definitions of the FADN - Farm Accountancy Data Network);

Rural development policy

32. The purpose of the rural development policy is not to replace the CAP but to strengthen, supplement and balance it, combining price and income support measures with measures to support the diversification of the economic base of farms, structural modernization and the sustainability thereof. The goal of these measures must be the strengthening of regional economic flows which, through regional processing and marketing of agricultural products, bring greater added value into the region. Linking farms and their activities to their environment and the need to offer them the prospect of sustainable development mean that agri-environmental and agri-forestry measures must be fully exploited and incorporated into the rural development policy as a whole;

33. Parliament considers it essential, in the context of an agricultural policy aimed at promoting rural development, for infrastructural investment to be provided at a level ensuring the development of local markets and their marketing circuits and closer links between local producers and the corresponding local suppliers, and for the development of organic farming and promotion and information in respect of traditional and regional products to be supported;

34. The competitiveness of the entire agricultural sector should be pursued by means of support for rural communities, with a view to achieving integrated intersectoral growth. Encouraging the use of new technologies, stimulating growth in rural tourism and providing incentives for a host of small and medium-sized businesses will promote development based on agriculture which will tend towards a high degree of interdisciplinarity;

35. The essential feature of a new rural development strategy should no longer be support for isolated investment but, rather, the financing of integrated agriculture-based projects. In this context the rural policy should encourage the development of alternative and appropriate employment opportunities in rural areas, particularly those ceasing to be covered by Objective 1 or new Objective 2, as direct employment in agriculture declines;

36. Parliament calls upon the Commission to revise the Agenda 2000 proposals to incorporate the ten points of the Cork Declaration and thereby create a truly integrated, multi-sectoral rural policy which benefits the wider rural community and is not directed solely at the agricultural sector. In this context Parliament considers it necessary to address problems specific to rural areas such as remoteness and poor transport links, lack of employment opportunities and the need for diversification;

37. In this connection, Parliament is recommending to the Council that the CAP should be renamed the CARP - Common Agricultural and Rural Policy;

38. By virtue of its nature the rural development policy should be devised and implemented on a decentralized basis which incorporates the various levels of government and administration and also the bodies within civil society which represent social, economic, cultural and environmental interests;

39. Parliament considers that, in view of the scope which it will in future be allocated, the rural development policy should be significantly strengthened in terms of financial resources and it should be managed more efficiently;

40. Parliament is also recommending that criteria should be incorporated to make it easier for young people to enter the agriculture sector and to gain access to the various types of quota, in view of the fact that the type of administrative structure which the CAP currently features does not serve their interests. Priority should be given to access to the profession for young people; the Commission should encourage the Member States to implement policies which give young people an incentive to enter the sector and to seek vocational training and guidance; the financial resources currently used to subsidize the establishment of young farmers under Objective 5a must be adequate and of such a kind that they can be extended to new eligible areas;

41. Parliament recommends more effective harmonization of the procedures for drawing up and approving rural development plans throughout the EU and the definition of the measures to assist rural areas which are provided for in the Structural Fund framework regulation for Objective 1 and Objective 2 regions;

Food quality and safety

42. Despite the efforts which have already been made, quality policy, which concerns not only the safety of foodstuffs but also, in a wider sense, concern for the environment, biodiversity and animal welfare, must still be made the centrepiece of the entire CAP market policy;

43. Food safety should centre on three issues: health, agriculture and consumption. The concept of protection should be stressed at all stages of the food chain. Agricultural protection, in so far as it concerns food products, should be considered as part of food policy, which implies that the objectives of the CAP should be subordinate to those of the common food policy. It is therefore essential to preserve a European agricultural system based on biodiversity, quality and the diversity of regional products;

44. The notable effort made by the EU to improve food quality and safety must be continued more intensively on a joint basis and at Member State level in order to strengthen the link between European producers and consumers. In the international context steps must be taken to ensure that, with the growing free trade in agricultural products, European farmers do not suffer any adverse effects from the fact that environmental requirements are less strict elsewhere or are at least less strictly applied;

45. Greater funding must be made available for the application of existing measures relating to denomination of origin, protected geographic indication, labelling, plant-health protection and animal health;

46. In this connection, the conditions and mechanisms should be created for improving the certification of products marketed within the single European market, taking due account of product origins and socially and environmentally acceptable health conditions and production methods, without prejudice to the existing national certification systems;

47. Wishes to see a significant strengthening of measures to promote European agri-food products on world markets (measures which should be linked in particular to new quality policies);

Production for non-food purposes

48. The outlines of a global policy of developing products from renewable raw materials must be more clearly defined and geared towards the biofuels sector. Support measures must give genuine encouragement to job-creating non-food production. Account must be taken of the social and environmental aspects by increasing the use of renewable energy sources available locally;

49. The use of agricultural products for non-food purposes, e.g. for biomass, makes it possible to create new sources of income and jobs in rural regions. Ecological energy generation from biomass contributes to reducing CO2 emissions. This sector should be supported in the context of Community legislation, in particular by means of tax privileges or exemptions, and, in addition, the use of certain non-food products with a positive life cycle analysis must be made compulsory, in particular in environmentally sensitive areas. Given its positive effects for agriculture and the countryside, biomass should be properly taken into account in the next stages of the CAP reform. Previous measures, such as those under the ALTENER programme or the growing of agricultural products for the non-food sector on areas supported under the set-aside provisions, are to be viewed positively. However, they do not go far enough. In the framework of the agriculture reform under Agenda 2000, support for renewable raw materials should therefore be increased;

The forthcoming enlargement

50. The situation in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, which, from the agricultural point of view, have significant productive potential and considerably lower production costs than is the case in the rest of Europe, may in future create strong competition for farmers in the 15 existing EU Member States. However, this danger must not weaken the EU's commitment to remedying the significant degree of structural backwardness in terms of production, processing and marketing operations in those countries through recourse to the Structural Funds during the pre-accession and transition periods;

51. To minimize the difficulties of adjustment which will be experienced on both sides, the actual transition should be divided into two distinct periods: one in which the rural development policy (including structural modernization) would immediately be applied and legislative harmonization would be undertaken in the veterinary and plant-health fields, and a second one in which prices would be progressively harmonized and income support gradually introduced;

52. Starting in 1999, the EU should support agri-environment programmes in the first six acceding countries of central and eastern Europe so that the schemes are in place well before they join. Thereafter the other associated central and eastern European countries should be included;

Options and determining factors as regards the WTO

53. In a forthcoming WTO round the EU will have to engage in the negotiations from a position of vigorous, uncompromising defence for its agricultural system and its agrarian model, taking into account the fact that the planned enlargement to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe will impose additional restrictions in terms of adaptation, adjustment and new internal trade and agricultural policy rules;

54. On that occasion the European Union will have to assert its own agricultural identity based not just on productive aspects but also on aspects relating to protection of the environment, territorial administration and the quality and typicality of foodstuffs. Furthermore, as a consequence of the opening up of markets, a process must be launched to ensure proper harmonization of the obligations to which farmers in the various areas of the market are subject;

55. Parliament calls on the WTO in its negotiations to resist the temptation to bring the CAP into line with the American model; in other words, the wish to consolidate the EU in its position as a great world exporting power might start the EU on a spiral of price dumping and thus of producer income dumping;

56. Without questioning the incorporation of agricultural products into the multilateral trade rules, it must be acknowledged that agriculture and the rural environment have specific social, environmental and other characteristics and constraints which are not shared by any other sector of the economy, which justifies the use of the principle of rural exception, which sets out the limits to globalization in the sector. Although such a principle is universally applicable, the specific nature of the European agriculture model makes the need for it particularly clear;

57. To ensure that free trade is socially tolerable, attention must be drawn to inequalities, and new common international rules be drawn up, incorporating clauses in such important areas as production costs, socio-employment and environmental law, the need for food safety and awareness of consumer sensitivity. The Commission, during the next round of negotiations, must therefore make use of the room for manoeuvre gained through the dismantling of export refunds to guarantee an appropriate and effective external protection against social and environmental dumping;

58. The Council and Commission must also defend these principles of fair trade and coherence with the other Union policies when negotiating free trade agreements with third countries or other common market organizations;

Budget issues

59. Parliament considers that the current criteria for determining the guideline, which from the start constituted a reference and stability framework for economic operators in the agri-food sector, should be maintained;

60. The guideline should be used to finance all rural development measures intended for farmers (whether or not they are situated within Objective 1 regions), including structural, agri-environmental and agri-forestry measures and also compensatory payments to disadvantaged regions, which will help to improve the internal cohesion of agricultural and rural policy and pre-accession policy;

61. For reasons of clarity and budget transparency the funding of all pre-accession measures for the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (agriculture-related or otherwise) should be entered under its own heading, outside the guideline, and the measures should subsequently be incorporated into the funding of the respective policies as enlargement to include each of the countries concerned proceeded;

62. The strengthening of the various measures which is proposed in this resolution should be financed from the savings made by means of a smaller reduction in prices, efficient use of the funds available under the guideline and appropriate checks on the allocation of funding;

Regional policy

63. Parliament notes the Commission's proposals for a regulation for the promotion of rural development through the EAGGF and for a regulation on structural measures in the fisheries sector as giving concrete form to Agenda 2000; the new EAGGF regulation recently proposed brings together nine existing regulations (including four Objective 5a regulations and the three regulations on agricultural flanking measures), although details of its funding are not yet available;

64. Parliament fully supports the conclusion of the Luxembourg summit to the effect that the conditions for agricultural production must be protected everywhere in Europe, including areas with specific problems;

65. The proposal for a new EAGGF regulation brings together for the first time all the measures for the development of rural areas and thus contributes to simplification and transparency; however, a structure with nine different types of measures, two separate sources of funding (the EAGGF Guarantee and Guidance sections, with two separate budget headings) and two different planning approaches (Objectives 1 and 2 and others) still represents a degree of complexity which fails to reflect the principle of a simple, targeted and coherent policy for rural areas;

66. The proposed new EAGGF regulation regrettably does not really make sustainable rural development, as proposed in the Cork Declaration, into one of the European Union's main concerns; its grouping of existing instruments under a single heading does not reveal any new perspectives such as to justify the title of 'second pillar of agricultural policy';

67. Parliament is concerned that the rural areas in the new Objective 2 will suffer in relation to the industrial areas, and therefore calls for special measures to preserve the viability of rural areas and to resolve the problem of flight from the land;

68. Public subsidies should be granted not solely in the regions eligible for aid under the EU's structural policy, but also in regions which are not eligible for aid, particularly rural and island areas whose regional economies are threatened;

69. The Commission should put forward firm proposals to link agriculture with its local region (action on quality, local products, labelling) and thus allow the harmonious development of rural areas involving the two main economic activities of agriculture and craft industries (SMEs upstream and downstream of agriculture), while ensuring that all local services are maintained;

70. The Commission's initial proposals for a regulation on the future EAGGF Guarantee section do not incorporate the zones which are not eligible under the proposed Objective 1 and 2 for fisheries and aquaculture; under the adjustments made to Agenda 2000 by the Commission on 18 March 1998 these zones are now to be supported from the EAGGF Guarantee section; in this connection, the Commission is asked to submit as soon as possible details of the arrangements and conditions for the Community's financial participation, to permit a genuine assessment to be made of the proposed structural policy on fisheries;

71. Parliament is concerned at the possible drastic reduction in the budget allocated to structural actions for agriculture, fisheries and aquaculture at a time when the structural changes to these sectors have not been completed and the implementation of the CFP requires significant financial resources and when it is also necessary to assist young farmers and young fishermen to invest and set up, their financial needs being particularly significant in the less-favoured and island regions;

72. The Commission is reminded of the conclusion of the Luxembourg summit in December 1997 to the effect that it should be possible to preserve a viable rural environment by farming throughout the European territory, including less favoured, mountainous and remote areas; the Commission is urged to act in accordance with these demands;

73. The Commission is urged to support by all possible means activities supplementary to farming (such as rural tourism and direct sales of produce by farms) with a view to diversifying production in rural areas;

74. Parliament reiterates its call for the creation of a specific horizontal regulation for fisheries and the saltwater and inland aquaculture sector, in order to preserve the future of the FIFG and to have the necessary funding to implement the CFP and also to ensure real support for rural development and for small and medium-sized farms which complements the changes in the CAP, including in the less-favoured and island regions;

75. Parliament notes with interest the changes of emphasis and proposals introduced by the Commission in its Agenda 2000 proposal on 18 March 1998 but considers nevertheless that these efforts are inadequate;

76. Parliament reiterates its call for horizontal support for rural areas;

Fisheries policy

77. It is regrettable that, contrary to the situation which existed under Objective 5a which applied to all the territory of the Member States of the Union not covered by Objectives 1 and 6, the zones eligible under Objective 2 would be considerably reduced, as they would be restricted to those coastal areas where employment in the fisheries sector reaches a significant level;

78. It is regrettable that the mainland aquaculture enterprises or the processing enterprises based outside coastal areas could be excluded from the new provision;

79. It is regrettable that the rate of intervention through official aid could range from 75% for Objective 1 regions to 0% for regions which are not eligible at all, even when vessels fishing in the same zones are affected;

80. Parliament notes and condemns the fact that the initial proposals for a Commission regulation on the future EAGGF Guarantee section do not incorporate the zones which are not eligible under Objective 1 and 2 for fisheries and aquaculture;

81. Parliament wonders about the future of the FIFG, which at present covers almost all structural interventions for fisheries and aquaculture;

II. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council and Commission.