Brussels, 01/04/2009 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament agriculture committee has approved, with only one amendment, the proposal to extend the Spanish and Greek restructuring programmes in the cotton sector and to widen aid to other ginning factories in these countries. The advisory report by Maria Isabel Salinas Garcia (PES, Spain) on this text was adopted virtually unanimously (by 23 votes to 1, with no abstentions). The European Parliament plenary session vote will take place in the 21-24 April session in Strasbourg.
The proposal seeks to amend the 2008 regulation on cotton, in order to extend, from four to eight years (2010-2017), the programming period of the national restructuring plans and to allow ginning factories that were not working during the reference period 2005-2006 to receive aid. The amendment adopted states that the origins of the crisis being experienced by the cotton sector can be found in the regulation that came into force on 1 January 2006, which brought in partial decoupling of production aid.
The current regulation on cotton, which was amended in 2008, provides, inter alia, for restructuring programmes for Spain (Community contribution of €6.134 million per year from 2010 to 2013) and for Greece (€4 million per year over the same period). Extension will not mean any change to budget provisions. (L.C./transl.rt)