Brussels, 06/11/2014 (Agence Europe) - During a debate on Thursday 6 November on the draft budget 2015, MEPs from the European Parliament's agriculture committee said that the amending letter No.1/2015 (of the 15 October) was unacceptable. This includes measures taken to support the fruit and vegetables and milk sectors affected by the Russian embargo and which will receive funding from the agricultural crisis fund planned for the 2015 budget.
This crisis reserve fund has a budget of €433 million for 2015. Given the measures already taken to mitigate the effects of the Russian embargo on EU agricultural products, an envelope of €88 million for 2015 is all that remains. In addition to this, however, is around €80 million, which could be available due to the reduced use of funding available in the perishable fruit and vegetables sector.
MEPs also regretted that the majority of additional revenue available for funding the Common Agricultural Policy (€465 million) had been transferred to initiatives outside the CAP (Ebola, Syria, etc.), although agriculture is being hit head on by the Russian embargo. The coordinators of the four main political groups at the European Parliament's agriculture committee sent a letter on Wednesday 29 October to the new president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, calling on him to revise the proposal to activate the reserve (in the event of an agricultural crisis) for mitigating the measures taken to mitigate the effects of the Russian embargo on EU agricultural products (EUROPE 11189).
The president of the agriculture committee, Czes³aw Adam Siekierski (EPP, Poland) pointed out that the crisis experienced by the agricultural sector had not been caused by the markets because it involved a political crisis, “the budgetary means from the CAP should exclusively be used for agriculture and not other things”.
The own opinion rapporteur on the 2015 budget (the agriculture committee's opinion), Peter Jahr (EPP, Germany), said that they needed to provide aid to farmers hit by the embargo and that for this reason, they needed financial resources, “we think that the additional income available in the CAP should be used to tackle the crisis. We do not accept that they take all this money from us”.
Jean Arthuis (ALDE, France), the president of the EP budget committee, had been invited to speak by the agricultural committee and pointed out that the EU budget situation was “worrying”. The disparity between payment commitments and appropriations is increasing: slightly more than €23 billion by the end of 2013 and almost €30 billion today. He pointed out that it was in this urgent situation that the European Commission had drafted this amending letter. Arthuis explained “We have come to listen to the agriculture committee because conciliation efforts on the amending budgets in 2015 and the draft budget for 2015 began on Thursday at 15.00 hours. This conciliation should finish during the night of the 14-15 November”. During the conciliation attempts, the amending letter will be mentioned. CAP funding will have a balance of funding from which the Commission would like to take €448 million and therefore only releasing the €17 million that could be added to the funding to 2015 from the CAP. Arthuis broadly acknowledged that the reserve for exceptional crises had already been called on and asked what they should do if other crises arose.
Albert Dess (EPP, Germany) said that the funds from the agricultural sector should remain in the agricultural sector and be used to tackle the crisis. James Nicholson (ECR, United Kingdom) said that the Commission could not continue to act in this way and said that it was unacceptable. Jens Rohde from Denmark speaking on behalf of the Liberals, exclaimed “We can't play like this with farmers' money”. Jan Huitema (ALDE Netherlands) deplored the fact that there was only €88 million left in the crisis reserve fund, although there would be other crises to tackle in 2015 (African swine fever and foot and mouth disease).
Esther Herranz Garcia (EPP, Spain) said that this was, “doubly unfair” because farmers were suffering from the Russian boycott and were being paid aid exclusively from the agricultural budget. She said that the agricultural sector was suffering from decisions that had nothing to do with farming. In her view, the Commission proposal is totally incoherent. Paolo De Castro (S&D, Italy) said using the CAP as if it were at an automatic cash machine was, “a very dangerous precedent”.
The European Commission representative highlighted the difficult context and justified the transfer to other measures (Ebola, etc.) of additional agricultural revenue: the ceilings are too low, “we do not have enough money to respect our commitments and we are not able to pay the bills”. It was necessary to use all the different reserve funds possible, “to honour the most pressing needs”. He was keen to play down the situation regarding the agricultural budget: the crisis reserve will be used but this did not mean that everything would be spent (when the budget is executed in 2015, it will be possible to see what room for manoeuvre exists); - the fruit and vegetables measures cost less than expected.
In conclusion, Peter Jahr regretted that certain EU countries were refusing to pay their contribution to the EU budget and said that this was, “incomprehensible”. (LC)