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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 (a5 0083 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 c5­0081 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 beer tasting 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 hop producing countries of the community and which in the case of spain affects my region castilla león in the león 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 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 (a5 0093 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 c5­0171 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 re establish 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 2000 2004 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 turkish speaking and a small part of which is iranian speaking 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

should european money be spent on a country like this

in general my group is not in favour of funding undemocratic regimes

all too often we have noticed that they receive funding in the expectation that they will regard this money as a reward for taking small steps towards greater democracy and human rights and as an encouragement to take further such steps

in practice however this method does not work as we have since found out in turkey and russia

the funding is received but the situation does not improve

with the collapse of the soviet union tajikistan has reverted to the situation in the nineteenth and at the beginning of the twentieth century

there are several regionally powerful families and groups which are fighting each other in a situation where warlords seize upon political and religious differences as an excuse to justify armed action

the fate of tajikistan largely depends upon what is happening in its immediate surroundings such as the hopeless violent conflict in afghanistan

a large proportion of the tajikistani population lives in north east afghanistan the area which is not in the hands of the taliban

the north of tajikistan stretches out as far as the densely populated fergana valley which is partly located in uzbekistan and is completely integrated into the economy and road network of this neighbouring country

as a frontline area flanked on the one hand by the russian sphere of influence and on the other hand by islamic fundamentalism in afghanistan the present tajikistani state has little chance of survival

the only reason to inject european funding into tajikistan despite all this is that funding increases the chance of survival of the tajikistani population and offers more chance of peace than there would be without such aid