WRITTEN QUESTION P-0230/04 by Konstantinos Hatzidakis (PPE-DE) to the Commission. Utilisation of Community appropriations in the Member States at the close of 2003.
Date: 2004-01-26
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: Community support framework, EU Member State, commitment of expenditure

3.4.2004

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 84 E/553

Does the Commission believe that the French Government’s major interests in the African cotton sector via
the French Company for Developing Textile Fibres, which has a large network of branches in Africa, might
underpin the way in which the Community negotiators tolerated the belligerency of a group of African
countries at the WTO ministerial meeting in Cancún, when those countries attacked the Community
arrangements?

The problem of African cotton’s inability to compete with cotton from elsewhere and with other textile
fibres will not be resolved by the disappearance of the Community cotton industry. Does the Commission
therefore believe that the interests of a single country justify launching a proposal to reform the sector
which could put an end to the viability of EU cotton farming, given that, moreover, our cotton production
represents merely 2 % of world production, our exports 1,5 % of world trade, we import cotton virtually
duty free, and we do not grant export refunds?

Answer given by Mr Fischler on behalf of the Commission

(26 February 2004)

The proposal for reform of the Community cotton aid scheme has no link whatsoever with the interests of
the French-owned textile industry in West and Central Africa. Its justification can be found in the terms of
the Luxembourg Council compromise of
June 2003 whereby political agreement was obtained on
fundamental reform of the common agricultural policy and the Commission was charged with presenting
legislative adjustments for Mediterranean products on the same lines.

In the Doha Development Agenda negotiations the Union has pointed to the very marginal role of
European cotton on the world market and in particular its very limited impact on the world price of the
fibre. Not being a net exporter but on the contrary the biggest importer, the Union has to accept prices
and does not determine them. At the WTO ministerial meeting in Cancun, following a request by a
number of African countries for measures to address the depression in world market prices for cotton, the
Commission proposed a constructive solution, within the overall DDA agricultural negotiations on the
three pillars of market access, export support and domestic support, that addressed the trade issues related
to the price depression. This solution was further elaborated in the Commission Communication Reviving
the DDA Negotiations of 26 November 2003 that has been endorsed by the Member States.

The reform proposal for cotton is a response both to the compromise and to the abovementioned
commitment. There is definitely no aim of abolishing Community production to the benefit of the
production chain in any non-EU country.

We must also stress that the WTO initiative of these African countries concerned needs to find an
adequate response. It is essential that the developing countries integrate themselves more fully into world
trade and also into the negotiating fora for international trade, particularly the WTO.

(2004/C 84 E/0631)

WRITTEN QUESTION P-0230/04

by Konstantinos Hatzidakis (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(26 January 2004)

Subject: Utilisation of Community appropriations in the Member States at the close of 2003

Can the Commission provide a breakdown for each Member State of the level of commitments and
expenditure effected by the close of 2003 under the Community Support Frameworks?

C 84 E/554

Official Journal of the European Union

EN

3.4.2004

Supplementary answer
given by Mr Fischler on behalf of the Commission

(29 April 2004)

The Commission is sending direct to the Honourable Member and to Parliament’s Secretariat a computer
print-out containing the information requested.

(2004/C 84 E/0632)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0232/04

by Roger Helmer (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(2 February 2004)

Subject: Euro

Does the Commission agree with former Commission President Jacques Delors, who has been reported as
saying that the euro-zone has failed to exploit the economic potential of the single currency, and that
therefore, with hindsight, the UK was right to retain the pound and to decline to join the euro?

Does the Commission as a whole agree with current Commission President Romano Prodi, who has said
that the Stability and Growth Pact, designed to underpin the single currency, is ‘stupid’?

Answer given by Mr Solbes Mira on behalf of the Commission

(25 March 2004)

Exploiting the economic potential of the single currency goes beyond adopting the euro.
It implies
developing an overall economic strategy aiming at increasing growth potential. This is what the Lisbon
European Council’s (23/24 March 2000) strategy aims at. Economic reforms to raise Europe’s growth
potential are a key element of this strategy. Progress in implementing that strategy is reviewed each year
by the Spring European Council on the basis of a Commission Report. The latest Spring Report, adopted
by the Commission on 21 January 2004 concludes that although progress has been made in a number of
key fields, the implementation of the reforms by the Member States does not measure up to the task, and a
number of sectors are even encountering significant difficulties.

Nevertheless, there has been some progress in job creation: 6 million jobs created since 1999, in spite of
the economic slowdown; significant improvements in long-term unemployment and the rate of female
employment; opening up to competition of several strategic network markets (telecommunications, energy,
rail freight, etc.); internet take-up in schools, businesses, public administrations and households.

The Commission has always said that the United Kingdom will be welcomed in the euro area if it meets
the convergence criteria as laid down by the EC Treaty, should the United Kingdom decide that it wishes
to adopt the euro. On 9 June 2003 the United Kingdom Government also published its own assessment of
its five economic tests for the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) entry, acknowledging the benefits
from adopting the euro but deeming that the moment was not ripe.

On 27 November 2002 the Commission adopted a communication laying down proposals to reinforce the
co-ordination of budgetary policies (1). The proposals aimed at strengthening the economic rationale
underpinning budgetary policy decisions as part of general strategy to strengthen economic policy
co-ordination, putting more emphasis on the interrelation between budgetary policy and the need for
structural reforms in the Union.