kfajdsl/voxpopuli huggingface dataset:
additional funding will also be provided for the promotion of dairy products and pigmeat.
i want to emphasise the imperative need for rapid action and appeal to members for assistance in ensuring that this package is delivered quickly for the benefit of our farmers.
the package will reinforce the work on improvements for better outcomes at all layers of the food supply chain production processing and retail by promoting full use of the milk package for example through exchange of best practices including on unfair trading practices as well as by thoroughly reporting on all aspects of the milk package already in two thousand and sixteen and through a new dedicated high level group that will look at specific measures such as risk hedging instruments for agricultural products and credit for farmers
the package will also respond to societal challenges like completing our work on the school milk scheme programme and the additional funding for refugees.
the package will stabilise the market through a new and very generouslyresourced private storage scheme for skimmed milk powder and cheese as well as a new private storage scheme for pigmeat.
we have a global oversupply of milk to which all producing regions are contributing;
the commission's package is an appropriate mix to meet the challenges being faced by different sectors and farmers in member states and rather than focusing on individual measures i would urge members to look at the package as a whole.
week president juncker said that without farmers europe would not survive and he gave a commitment that he would not leave farmers out in the cold. the commission's package delivers on that commitment.
i am confident that the necessary resources to cover all measures are available to ensure that it is an effective response which will deliver on its objectives.
for those who question the adequacy of the package as an effective response i would say there are always some for whom any amount is never enough whether it is eur five hundred million or eur one billion but now that we have this package announced my focus is on delivering it. this is about what the commission can do for farmers and getting that done quickly particularly to address the immediate cashflow challenges of the sector.
in terms of the different aid packages and how they are reflected in real euros in each member state i would say that what we need to ensure is that the network of family farms that is the hallmark that is the very basis of european agriculture it is what makes us different needs to be protected not just for the farmers themselves but for the communities from which they come. many of the regions that depend on agriculture depend on it as the only thing or the nearest thing they have to an actual industry to keep young people in their communities and to keep thriving domestic economies going.
unless we ensure that this network of family farms is maintained we are not only damaging european agriculture we are actually damaging many of the regions that we represent.
mr president does the commissioner agree that fairness in agricultural markets is not just about producers processors and retailers but is also about consumers?
much of what we have addressed this evening is essentially about the shortterm difficulties in the supply chain especially in the dairy sector.
instead we should be unleashing the power of the consumer unleashing the power of the customer.
a significant minority maybe even a majority of eu customers want to help our eu farmers.
this could be achieved if we had an independent fair price certification scheme similar to the existing fairtrade mark which guarantees a fair price is being paid to the farmer in the developing world.
such a scheme would enable the customer to easily identify our farmers' products even if this means paying an additional slightly higher price.
i would like to tear up your speech though if i could read it jos. all actions have consequences and if you encourage people to have hopes that cannot be fulfilled then you will invite resentment and hostility.
the european union does this all the time.
the eu unsettled the citizens of ukraine and russia retaliated with a ban on western food imports. who pays the price for this? not the well paid eu officials but farmers across europe who have lost a significant market have found themselves in a situation of oversupply and experience the inevitable crash in income. for make no mistake as russia bulldozes illegal ham and cheese into the ground the eu must appreciate that this is the consequence of its own actions.
severe punishment of course will be meted out by the russians to those of its own citizens who facilitated the sanctions busting and god knows what they are going through at the moment but again the eu officials will not feel the pain.
the recently announced rescue package to agriculture to compensate farmers for their losses will do no such thing.
there is one glaring contradiction in the proposals.
the commission has promised farmers access to financial and risk hedging instruments as part of the package.
farmers have always had these in the form of futures markets.
however the eu is at this very minute making participation in futures markets much more difficult in its mifid ii legislation.
i have to say to you jos and martin husling over there that you have campaigned in the last six years for the abolition of futures markets in agriculture and yet these help us enormously.
so please do not promise what you cannot deliver. the eu has long pursued a policy of market intervention generating hopes and expectations which it can no longer afford.
responsible supply chain management is now required and not handouts.
the failure to understand basic economics leads me to the new face in british politics.
until this month jeremy corbyn made herman van rompuy look high profile.
and what is mr corbyn's first action on food and farming?
well he appoints a vegan that is somebody who does not eat meat milk or eggs as the spokesman.
i would love to be a fly on the wall in that conversation.
so this is not a normal cyclical downturn.
these are exceptional times and exceptional circumstances and farming is caught up in a perfect storm. so i make two points.
first i am happy that the commissioner recognises the very tough times our farmers are facing and i compliment him on the aid package which i think is both appropriate and welcome.
second while the storm will pass i urge both the commission and the farming industry to learn the lessons of this crisis and in so doing to turn it into an opportunity to build a more competitive and more resilient food sector for the future.
i am just wondering commissioner how long you think it has been going on because on the last few occasions you met us you told us there was no crisis? the big problem is not going to be solved by throwing a few quid at farmers.
it is like giving roscommon a one point lead in a hurling match against kilkenny nice thought but it will not solve the problem. the problem will be solved by making the big smaller so they do not continue to crush the producers.
we need to fund producer groups but i find it very interesting that the commission seems to want to limit their size.
that is the only way we will get it to work because otherwise they will continue to crush the producer.
china is a very important market for us.
is it by taking action when appropriate but also keeping your own markets open or is it by closing your own markets?
he said we must focus on the positives.
secondly eu investors are debarred for example from owning their own company. you must hand over at least half the ownership of your company if you establish in china.
the wto settlement body for example ruled against the chinese practice in july. two thousand and eleven the sheer size power and potential of china are absolutely phenomenal.
first of all there is the huge imbalance between the manner in which the eu treats chinese companies investing in europe and the manner in which china treats eu companies investing in china. not only is the situation bad it is actually getting worse forty three of the eu companies in europe confirm that there is anti eu discrimination;
two thousand and ten the problem areas have been outlined first of all public procurement.
the west has inflicted much of the harm itself as nearly all of china's export trade has been supplied by companies established with western technology and expertise to compete with our industries and throw our workers on the scrap heap.
the countries of europe must act to protect their manufacturing and the jobs of their peoples.
the problem is that eu countries individually and collectively have embraced the economic ideology of globalism while china is quite understandably pursuing a policy of economic nationalism.
however my support depends on the following conditions the securing of appropriate market access for eu investment in china and we have heard about that from mr rinaldi and the establishment of appropriate rules to attract support and chinese investment into the european union.
i think it is important to note that while caution felt towards china can be justified we must stop seeing china purely as a threat to our growth and recognise the opportunities that a strong china eu relationship can bring.
this is particularly true when it comes to fostering new partnerships in the development of new generation energy technology etc.
i know commissioner we have had our disagreements about huawei but it is a company which has invested tremendously in europe and i see that as a huge opportunity for the european union.
i hope that more open transparent trade relations will develop and that these will lead to a greater respect for the rule of law especially in the field of international trade.
mr president this was indeed a very important presentation that ms de sarnez has given us and i know also that four parliament committees have contributed to this important work important because china is a very topical issue and essential for our foreign trade interests.
parliament's views on these links are obviously a crucial part of our platform in the dialogue with china.
i can agree with many of the specific findings in the report. china is increasingly driving global growth at a difficult time for the international economy and it is our fastest growing export market.
but at the same time the list of issues we need to address with china grows longer and the report is right in suggesting that there is a general feeling in europe that economic openness in china is not improving enough.
let me go through some of these.
it is essential for eu interests to have improved intellectual property rights enforcement in china.
european companies excel in cutting edge technologies and this is part of our competitive advantage.
it is a fact that ipr infringements undermine not only european investment and engagement in china but just as much china's ambition to develop its economy.
we should therefore redouble our efforts on ipr and we will use this report as a useful guide in addressing this with china.
i also agree with the report that we should aim for an ambitious and balanced investment agreement with china.
important sectors in china remain restricted for foreign investment and i believe that europe's open investment regime remains our strongest argument for others to grant us similar access. at the eu china summit in february we agreed to move towards bilateral investment negotiations.
market access in china will be part of this as will the way our investments are treated in china.
the report also states that we need to strengthen transparency regarding foreign direct investment in europe.
i agree with this in principle but also we need to be careful not to create new investment barriers at a time when europe needs to remain attractive to maintain growth and jobs.
the report's view on access to the public procurement market in china underlines why the commission is pushing for china to accede to the wto government procurement agreement.
limited and unbalanced access to many procurement markets globally is also why the commission has proposed an external procurement instrument which aims at ensuring better reciprocity in the way our companies can get access to foreign markets compared with the open access they enjoy in the eu.
with such an instrument we can have a better platform for addressing procurement concerns with china.
as the report rightly notes it is crucial for european businesses that we vigilantly defend our interests whenever trade rules are not respected.
we are doing this with anti dumping and anti subsidy instruments and we have resorted to the wto when that was necessary for example to address restrictions on access to raw materials and rare earths.
on the question of whether china can obtain market economy status i can only insist that this depends mainly on china itself as it has to meet a number of objective criteria.
finally i think it is important that the report also points to a path forward. even if our long term vision for a strategic partnership with china can come under pressure from day to day issues it is important that we keep in mind the vast potential for european businesses in china
and this raises the question of how we in europe engage in china and with china.
it is essential that the commission parliament the member states and the eu actors pass a coherent message to our respective chinese counterparts.
be redelegated to member states.
many of the suggestions made were then reflected in the circular economy package which the commission adopted in december.
many of your suggestions are very similar to ideas currently being examined by the task force.
my colleague first vicepresident frans timmermans would have liked to be here this evening but had to travel to luxembourg for the general affairs council.
we have made important steps towards more transparency more public participation and more evidencebased rulemaking.
since taking office the juncker commission has committed itself to give real effect to the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality. we want to work with national parliaments and eu institutions to ensure that every proposal complies with these principles and we improve our shared understanding of what subsidiarity and proportionality mean.
two thousand and seventeen we want to ensure that decisions are balanced and taken at the appropriate level whether it is european national regional or local and we need to discuss whether there are policy areas where competences could meaningfully
we have shown this joint commitment to bring about the change that citizens wish to see in europe.
under his steer the college has invested heavily in the better regulation agenda.
however we welcome that the report which we are discussing today confronts the parliament's interest in helping improve the application and monitoring of the subsidiarity principle.
two thousand and fifteen i agree with you that such an initiative shows how national parliaments can play a constructive role in the institutional framework. we believe our focus should now be on using the current mechanisms to the full rather than embarking on a lengthy institutional debate
in two thousand and fifteen a first green card initiative on food waste was supported by eighteen chambers.
i note the suggestion for the commission to reflect on excluding recess periods from the eightweek period as we have done for the month of august.
i hope you will bear with me whilst i make some rather general comments that are possibly somewhat personal in nature as well.
in particular thank you for always listening to the suggestions that i had to put forward not always agreeing but that is your prerogative but thank you for at least being open to the ideas that i suggested. for a number of years i held the brief on subsidiarity and proportionality on behalf of the committee and the confidence of
my fellow meps across the group always was a sign of real strength when it came to presentation of this matter in parliament.
however i will not vote against the report because we are where we are. it has always been my position that we actually need to tie the national parliaments into our legislation making and decision making processes otherwise we end up in the situation that my country is in today. this is the very last opportunity i have to address this house on this particular matter but we end up with an la carte' europe where what is popular is claimed by the governments for themselves and what is not popular is placed at the doorstep of the european parliament.
we cannot allow that situation to continue.
make the parliaments responsible;
tie them into what we do here.
i am really confident that this proposal will ensure a sustainable future for both this species and the associated fishing industry.
there would be a lot of legal and technical discussions on what such a listing in appendix ii would actually mean.
this resolution sends a clear message which we will need to take into consideration. while the detailed position of the european union has not been finalised yet i can explain the principles and priorities which will guide our decisions on the most sensitive issues to be discussed in doha.
international trade is limited but might exacerbate the pressure on the species.
in the first place the european union considers that cites is an appropriate instrument to regulate trade in all species which are affected by trade. this is the case for terrestrial as well as for marine species and for species subject to important commercial interests or not.
this has been a longstanding contentious issue within cites especially among african countries themselves.
in its discussions with the member states the commission will make sure that the final common position supports ambitious and science based measures.
i have to repeat here that there is no final position on this issue.
the protection afforded to elephants needs to be reinforced and the commission will not support solutions which would present a risk of increasing poaching.
it is a priority for the commission to make sure that international trade is not detrimental to the survival of endangered plants and animal species.
we also consider that proposals submitted to cites with a view to downlisting some elephant populations from cites appendix i to appendix ii need to be assessed objectively on the basis of the rules agreed within cites.
it is of the utmost importance that sharks at last receive the protection they deserve after decades of overfishing. a listing under cites appendix ii would put an end to unregulated international trade in shark products which is one of the key drivers of their exploitation.
our final position will depend on how the measure proposed by the united states provides real benefits for the conservation of a species.
finally on the question of corals there is no doubt that red and pink corals have been overharvested in many regions of the world.
the commission is very worried about the high level of poaching for elephants and illegal ivory trade which has been observed recently.
therefore it has a specific responsibility to ensure that wildlife trade is sustainable and that robust international rules are adopted within the cites convention to that effect.
the final commission position will take account of the latest scientific information on the stock and of the outcome of the meeting of the international commission for the conservation of atlantic tuna which took place in november last year. the second is elephants and the ivory trade.
what i can tell you is that there is concern within the commission on the current state of the stock and that we are working hard to find an appropriate proposal that will help properly address this problem at the international level.
i would also like to thank parliament for its position on the most salient issues which will be discussed at the cites conference of parties.
this needs to be addressed first and foremost via a very ambitious policy on climate change and i think that the eu has clearly shown the way to go in the matter. we also believe that it is worth checking how any additional threat to this species might be mitigated.
fifteen i believe that the european union should be consistent in this support as the new information available does not show any improvement in the situation.
this is a case where even organised crime is involved in the fishing industry and it is not surprising when so much money is to be made.
it keeps setting quotas far far too high.
we have a commissioner and a minister just going through the motions.
japan where apparently the word conservation' actually means buy en masse kill the fish and freeze them for twenty or thirty years so that they can be eaten in a couple of decades time.
let us just remember it is time we tried to control mankind's greed;
no fault to you commissioner but please go back to the college and say we need to debate with the commissioners responsible for the briefs in question.
of course this issue of bluefin tuna which no doubt will dominate the debate really highlights the issue it focuses it and it is of course a species purely in european waters.
it is time we tried to give a bit of thought to the future of our seas.
mr president today is supposed to represent a new start for europe but what have we here?
people have said that the scientific evidence is not reliable enough it is not extensive enough and it is not up to date enough. i would like to ask the commission and the council are they happy with the scientific evidence that is being produced?
because you can quote scientific evidence but then somebody might come along with a different example of a recommendation from other scientists.
mr president i came to the chamber to be educated or at least i hoped that would happen because there are two very valid sides to this debate in particular concerning bluefin tuna.
the first point i would make is that we have spoken about illegal fishing practices and it seems to me that illegal practitioners do not care about what appendix anything is in.
they will continue unless we have effective policing of these rules and regulations.
otherwise we are not going to make any serious progress.
covering those issues.
frankly the inability of the council of the european union to take any strategic view whatsoever on legislation before it comes to this house is absolutely incredible. one thing we should learn from this and i am sure the commissioner will support me is that we have to reform the council of the european union as a better and stronger partner for us
why should they be so inefficient about it? but actually and i say this finally to my friend toine manders a focused proposal without some of his more exotic ideas about rfid and number plates would actually have helped us.
i just want to conclude by thanking the commission for taking up the interests of citizens.
i do not blame him for that but he has seen the consequences of it in the daily express newspaper.
i reflect that when i first spoke late into the night in this chamber it was with your distinguished predecessor erkki liikanen who always used to complain that on these single market matters the only people there were the commissioners the members and the ushers and that we were normally outnumbered by the ushers.
we asked for the top twenty complaints of citizens in accessing their rights under the single market and the bureaucratic inefficiencies in car transferring regulations were among those at the top of the list.
why should the member states be deliberately frustrating this?
in codecision.
i just want to make some broader points about the way that the council has handled this whole affair because this seems to me to be something that we should learn from.
in countries which sustain very high registration taxes for vehicles were there when we started looking at this proposal eighteen months ago.
the european union is not just about the big issues of fighting climate change fighting crime boosting the economy but we also have to work together to get a better deal for our citizens on things like solving problems such as difficulties in re registering cars. i agree with the commissioner that this is also