Strasbourg, 24/05/2007 (Agence Europe) - The Parliament has not turned a blind eye to developments in maize public purchasing. On Thursday 24 May, it voted in favour of a gradual reduction in quantities of maize eligible for intervention, after the fashion of the compromise that European agriculture minsters are to reach in Luxembourg on 11 June (EUROPE 9429). The EP did not therefore follow up the position of its agriculture committee that called for the European Commission's controversial proposal to be withdrawn. The proposal was for abolition of intervention maize as of the next marketing period (EUROPE 9405). During the debate before the vote, the Commission expressed willingness to “discuss a phased reduction in intervention stocks” - which is only logical in that it has already rallied to the compromise text submitted by the German presidency of the EU Council of Ministers.
With the adoption by 326 votes for, 227 against and 8 abstentions, of the report by Béla Glattfelder (EPP-ED, Hungary) on intervention maize, the European Parliament preferred to show consistency with the final compromise that is taking shape between member states, and which was painfully negotiated. The EP in fact adopted four amendments submitted by Friedrich-Wilhelm Graefe zu Baringdorf of Germany, on behalf of the Greens/EFA, Niels Busk of Denmark for the ALDE Group, and Heinz Kindermann, an SPD party member. The amendments place a ceiling on intervention maize quantities of 2 million tonnes for the 2007/2008 marketing year, 1 million tonnes for 2008/2009 and zero tonnes for the marketing year 2009/1010. The Commission is invited to present, by 31 December 2008 at the latest, a report on the economic development of the market to examine whether it is appropriate to extend or to do away with the maize intervention system. We recall that the Council is expected to decide, on 11 June, on a considerably speedier reduction in public maize purchases: 1.5 million tonnes in 2007/2008, 700,000 tonnes in 2008/2009 and zero tonnes in 2009/2010.
The immediate suppression of public maize purchases, as the Commission wanted to begin with, “would represent a particularly severe case especially for the new member states given that the purchases necessary for spring sowing have largely been completed”, the EP explained, preferring a solution that “would give the sector sufficient time to adjust”: a transitional period of three years during which maize purchases would be gradually reduced to zero tonnes. (lc)