Brussels, 21/09/2004 (Agence Europe) - The European Farmers' Coordination (CPE) asks the European Parliament not to approve the nomination of Marian Fischer-Boel to the post of European Commissioner in charge of agriculture and rural development (see also EUROPE of 18 September 2004, p.10 and p.11 on preparation for the hearing of the Commissioner-designate). The agricultural organisation agrees, however, that Ms Fischer-Boel could be assigned to another position within the Commission headed by José Manuel Barroso.
The CPE mainly criticises Ms Fischer-Boel for having regularly spoken out (during her tenure as Agriculture Minister in Denmark) against any form of market regulation or supply management of production (which CPE finds a "simplistic ideological vision, where the interests of industry, big retailers and international agricultural trade pass before those of the different forms of agriculture and populations" before those of "sustainable family farming". According to the organisation, Denmark "sets a bad example of very intensive pork production directed towards export". Also, CPE considers that the "rather large farm" of the family Fischer-Boel, specialised in intensive pork production, "illustrates well the tendency to 'Americanisation' of European agriculture, that destroys the countryside in the North as in the South, and which runs counter to the objectives of rural development declared by the European Union". By way of conclusion, CPE considers that Ms Fischer-Boel will have ideological and personal difficulties to promote a Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) that is "socially and environmentally just".