Brussels, 07/10/2014 (Agence Europe) - It was with a certain degree of emotion that Dacian Ciolos attended his last ever meeting with the members of the committee on agriculture of the European Parliament on Monday 5 October, where he defended his results, despite criticism of the reform of the common agriculture policy (CAP), the problems in the dairy sector and the measures taken to offset the effects of the Russian ban on imports of agricultural produce from the EU.
On life after his five years as Agriculture Commissioner, Ciolos just said that he hoped to stay close to the agriculture sector. He said that he felt that his successor, Phil Hogan, would come into the job with some "good ideas" for the sector. In his introductory speech, Ciolos took stock of the main elements of the CAP reform (greening, new system of direct payments, safety net for the markets, crisis reserve, greater complementarity between the first and second pillars of the CAP, etc). He recognised that the Commission would be doing its next five years' work in a "tougher" budgetary context.
CAP reform. Albert Dess (EPP, Germany) criticised the results of the reform, particularly the administrative burden on farmers. Ciolos responded by pointing out that the reform was the result of the work of the three institutions involved. "We have to accept the results of democracy", Ciolos said. He admitted that there would be some things in need of improvement in the implementation of certain aspects of greening, because "this is new to us. But we shouldn't destroy the idea of greening because of the changes it will call for". Lidia Senra Rodriguez (GUE/NGL, Spain) charged the Commissioner with failing to respect his commitments to protect SMEs, as the dairy crisis continues, she said.
Martin Häusling (Greens/EFA, Germany) said that with greening, the CAP was on the right track. He expressed his hopes that the next Commission "will not undo it all". In response to a question from Ulrike Müller (ALDE, Germany), Ciolos said: "show me a CAP reform which has done more to take account of the existence and reality of small farmers in the EU". There will be less of an administrative burden on small farmers, Ciolos argued. He told Michel Dantin (EPP, France), who asked him what he would take away with him from the experience, that he had "a firm belief that the agri-food and agriculture sector of the EU are efficient. We have far more to show off at international level". The EU is the second-largest exporter of agri-food products in the world, he stressed.
Russian ban. Many MEPs raised the matter of this dossier, some of them (Polish) reproaching the Commissioner for having failed to anticipate the problems and to pay any compensation to farmers. Ciolos said that the Commission had reacted very quickly. We cannot reimburse all of the Polish applications, because the Commission cannot check everything on the ground. "We need honest actions from the countries. Not all of the money made available will be used, because there have been market withdrawal requests which were not submitted correctly. But that is not the Commission's fault". On retroactivity, he said that the measures (fruit and vegetables) have been in force since 18 August, ten days after the Russian ban came in. (LC)