The European Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture overall welcomed, on Monday 29 June, the content of Éric Sargiacomo’s draft report (S&D, French) on Common Market Organisation (CMO) (see EUROPE 13885/11), albeit with some nuances depending on the political groups.
Daniel Buda (EPP, Romanian) stressed the need to strengthen the position of farmers within supply chains “so that they can make their voice heard through producer organisations”. He also drew attention to imports from third countries, for which he considered it “essential to guarantee an appropriate level of quality”. The MEPs also questioned Parliament’s level of ambition regarding meat designations. “We cannot allow a product that has no connection whatsoever with an animal or with the livestock sector to bear a designation associated with meat”, he said. Daniel Buda and others advocated maintaining the EU school fruit and vegetables scheme.
Gilles Pennelle (PfE, French) welcomed the increase in intervention thresholds and the resulting restoration of public storage, but considered that the rapporteur’s proposals, as they stand, are “unable to guarantee prices that are genuinely profitable for farmers”. The PfE group proposes: - that intervention thresholds be set at 100% (and not 80%) of national production costs; - the restoration of entry prices for imported products at a sufficiently high level effectively to protect European farmers from unfair competition from third countries.
Jérémy Decerle (Renew Europe, French) expressed his support for the ambition of reconnecting with genuine common sectoral policies, notably for wine and for fruit and vegetables. He also welcomed the ambition regarding the ‘protein plan’, saying that all the issues linked to proteins will have to be brought back to the forefront in the report. Lastly, he indicated that the Renew Europe group stands ready to discuss the issue of strategic stocks and how they should be managed.
Martin Häusling (Greens/EFA, German) thanked the rapporteur for having established a link between production costs and intervention prices. As regards public storage, he considered that the European dimension of these instruments should be strengthened and that the distinction between emergency stocks and reserve stocks should be clearly established. On the issue of hemp, Mr Häusling questioned the relevance of a distinction between industrial hemp and hemp intended for extraction, insofar as these are generally the same producers.
Céline Imart (EPP, French) said that it was necessary to restore producers’ right to join several organisations, without limiting this possibility to the potato sector alone.
Éric Sargiacomo considered it essential to provide for a clear definition of what constitutes a market crisis and said that prices which have not been re-evaluated for a very long time need to be reviewed.
He concluded by stating that “there will still be many discussions in the months ahead to strengthen this proposal in order to make it more robust, to guarantee a strong mandate for the European Parliament and to ensure that this is fully respected in the future CMO as well as in the overall architecture, which will then be presented in the context of negotiations with the Council and the Commission”.
Link to the draft report: https://aeur.eu/f/mnr (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)