The new European Parliament is obviously in favour of common EU policies and the use of new instruments provided by the Lisbon Treaty for expanding and developing them. This orientation covers just as much the newly planned policies (such as the one for energy) as the two existing ones which have recently been discussed, at least from a budgetary point of view - the common agricultural policy (CAP) and cohesion policy (see this column yesterday).
CAP support grows. No-one disagrees that the CAP should be partly revised and corrected, but without threatening its existence and objectives. The worrying and sometimes dramatic developments in the international situation call for strengthening and developing European agriculture, which is vital for the EU and necessary for the whole world. The European Parliament has called on the European Commission to exclude any further trade concessions in the agricultural sector in the final phase of the Doha Round (EUROPE 10043) and this greater awareness includes member states too. Last December, agricultural ministers from 22 countries met to proclaim categorically that the CAP should be allowed to meet the objective it was set in 1957 with the Treaty of Rome - ensuring food security in Europe. This objective remains a priority and we know only too well to what extent the role of agriculture has increased in the meantime: environmental protection, regional balance, contribution to the fight against starvation in the world and so forth. I believe that the organisation of the ministerial meeting mentioned above, while leaving five member states on the sidelines (the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Malta), was inappropriate. Even in the hypothesis that these countries support the renationalisation of the CAP and a significant reduction in its funding, they should not be excluded but rather, convinced. Coming back to the role of the European Parliament - it will be increasingly essential as it ultimately controls the Union's agricultural spending, over which it had no control until the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty. The speech by Mr Paolo Castro, the president of the agriculture committee, during the parliamentary hearing of the new European commissioner for the budget, Janusz Lewandowski, was informative (see yesterday's bulletin).
Almost unanimous support. In the context of cohesion policy, the Parliament did not have to wait until the hearings and investiture of the “Barroso II” Commission to have its say: on 18 December it organised a specific debate (EUROPE 1044) even if, obviously, it was only able to have the current commissioner for regional policy, Pawe³ Samecki, as its interlocutor, and not yet the commissioner-designate, Johannes Hahn. The EP set itself a triple objective: a) to obtain confirmation that the “Reform the budget, change Europe” document would never be adopted by the Commission; b) to obtain commitments from the Commission on the future and c) to robustly affirm the EP's support for this policy.
The first objective was attained without any difficulty (although it is strange that some MEPs, like Bruno Gollnisch from France, spoke about the secrecy surrounding this document, when in fact EUROPE 1004 summarised it at some length on 23 October). The second objective could only be partially attained because Mr Samecki was unable to anticipate what the Commission will decide on budgetary reform: he promised a clear position for next autumn, and dialogue with the Parliament on this subject. The general guideline, however, was very clear: cohesion policy is and will remain an essential element in Community activity, and is the instrument that will help to gradually reduce development and prosperity disparities between regions. It will be the Barroso II Commission which will outline the details and Parliament will obviously have its word on the matter.
One last thing - speeches by MEPs represented a very real appeal from most political groups in favour of cohesion policy, with few exceptions. Danuta Hübner, the president of the regional development committee at the Parliament, knows all the details of this dossier including its technical aspects, which is quite normal because a few months ago she was still the European commissioner for regional policy! She therefore asked Mr Samecki a series of questions. He was unable to respond to a few of them because he was waiting for the new Commission to come into being. We can trust Ms Hübner though; Parliament will play its role in full.
Conclusion: the development of these two essential dossiers - agriculture and cohesion - appears positive and understanding them is making headway. Nothing is in the bag yet, though. (F.R./transl.fl)