Speeches

Madam President, Commissioner, there are two assumptions on which we can rely. The first is that there is a clear link between pesticide use and consumer health, and it is our duty to ensure that consumer health is no longer at risk and that it is no longer at risk. The other observation – and I am sorry, ladies and gentlemen, I am going to rescue the Commissioner – is that there are other solutions. We have robust scientific studies that demonstrate that pesticide substitutes have a name: agronomy. As a farmer myself, I have been using these methods for a very long time, and they work wonderfully, because biodiversity helps us, because the climate is less violent towards people who work with these alternative methods. We must therefore ensure that public policies only support these alternative methods, but unfortunately the CAP is not up to the task, and the national strategic plans tabled by the majority of Member States are not up to the challenge either. The question I therefore have to ask you, Commissioner, is as follows: How are we going to be at the rendezvous that we have with history with this CAP and with the national strategic plans that are currently on the table?

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the war in Ukraine has an immediate impact on global food. The countries of the North Black Sea supplied almost 30% of the world cereals market. The inhabitants of the Mediterranean basin are worried because they know that the price of bread will rise very sharply. The agricultural system established by the World Trade Organisation has collapsed. This war demonstrates the vulnerability of its logics. In the medium term, we therefore have a duty to completely review these neoliberal policies. In the short term, the urgent need is to use cereals to feed humans. Europe must prioritise land use for food. The priority is therefore not to produce agrofuels, agrogas or feed. It is also necessary to provide financial support to importing countries in order to avoid, at all costs, a failure to pay with catastrophic consequences. European peasants face two challenges: ensuring food for thousands of people while accelerating the fight against climate change and the collapse of biodiversity. The European Commission must not panic by challenging the Farm to Fork strategy. These guidelines will allow us to reduce our dependence on Russian fertilizers and Brazilian soybeans. Today, they are even more important and relevant than they were yesterday. They bring us closer to food sovereignty by strengthening our autonomy and making us more resistant to external dangers.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to take a moment to thank my colleague Grace O’Sullivan, who, as rapporteur on this text, has done a great job in a delicate negotiation with the Council. In particular, I welcome his determined action to retain a reference to the need to phase out subsidies that encourage the use of fossil resources. It is not insignificant that we are discussing this text in the very special moment we are living in today. The war, accompanied by its procession of misfortunes, is back at our gates. The shock is immense and everything must be done in the short term to end this conflict and mitigate its effects on people around the world. But in this particular moment, we must keep a cool head, and this report reminds us of the compass that must be ours in the long term. In truth, ladies and gentlemen, climate change and the collapse of biodiversity are the ultimate threats that we absolutely must face. But fortunately, where there is a will, there is a path. And as the report rightly points out, the path of sobriety is also a path of human prosperity. I would add that it is also a path of sovereignty, a path that reduces our dependencies while avoiding autarky and withdrawal. I would obviously call on all my colleagues to vote for this excellent report and I hope that it will be a welcome reminder for those of us who, under the understandable influence of the emotions of the moment, would come to doubt the merits of the Green Deal.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, what are the real challenges of a world summit on food security? Tackling the ever-increasing precarisation of access to food for more and more citizens. There are 770 million of them, the main victims of which are children and peasants. While we are seeing more and more obesity in the North, more and more famine in the South, is it not urgent to get out of the cold arithmetic approaches that show their limits and demonstrate how much the notion of sharing has been neglected for far too long? European public policies encouraging export-oriented agriculture and encouraging dumping are only amplifying these dramatic findings. The values of the European Union, based on solidarity and fraternity, must be included in this debate so that the primary need to be able to feed all, just and healthy, is at the heart of our strategies for agricultural development and cooperation with the countries of the South. Only the notion of food sovereignty, as defined by Via Campesina, proposes this virtuous approach, but requires that the great forgotten people of this summit be associated with its construction: citizens, peasants and peasants. Europe must therefore build hope for this necessary food sovereignty by daring to review the international trade system imposed by the WTO, by daring to support effectively the emergence of food crops, by daring to give the political weight and the means to the various United Nations bodies, the World Food Programme, to dispose of security stocks. So, beyond the food dimension, peace, the will behind the construction of Europe, will only come at this price.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, mitigating climate change, combating the collapse of biodiversity, preserving the health of eaters, restoring the quality of vital resources such as water and air, achieving food sovereignty, significantly improving farmers’ incomes, relaunching the dynamics of installation in agriculture are the salutary ambitions of the Green Deal, the basis of this mandate, for the Commission and for the European Parliament. If we really want to prepare for the future of future generations, we can no longer further delay decisions, acts, measures to meet this objective, and we have already started with the validation of the strategies for biodiversity and ‘Farm to Fork’. Agriculture is an absolutely strategic economic sector in relation to these challenges. On the one hand, because it is at the heart of these issues, but also because it enjoys strong support from public policies. On the other hand, nothing will be possible without reinventing the central public policies to achieve these objectives, such as the Common Agricultural Policy, which mobilises for the next seven years almost 40% of the total EU budget. To reject this copy of the CAP today is to take seriously the warnings of scientists calling on us to act urgently, decisively and without delay. Rejecting this copy of the CAP today means giving yourself the chance to write a new one that meets the challenges of the moment. In terms of responsibility, the CAP that we will draft in 2021 will not be able to hide the ambitious objectives of the Green Deal strategies, nor will it be able to ignore the lessons learnt from successive reports by the European Court of Auditors. As a matter of responsibility, the CAP we will draft in 2021 will give new hope to the European project, future generations and farmers across Europe. So, ladies and gentlemen, let us be consistent, let us be visionary, let us not tremble just now. Let’s not waste this beautiful hope and let’s be together, courageously and boldly, at the rendezvous of history.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Europe, our planet, humanity, above all, have a meeting point with history. So, if everything is not perfect in this Farm to Fork strategy, with for example a blind spot on the subject of seeds, its ambitions are broadly in the right direction. Let us not fall asleep by the stale words of another time, distilled by conservative lobbyists, preachers of the food and agricultural apocalypse, whose anxiety messages have absolutely no other objective than to preserve the interests of a few at the expense of the climate, biodiversity, our health, farmers and therefore at the expense of the robust ecological base necessary to build a dignified and decent future for our children. We therefore have a duty to vote without shaking the ambitions of this strategy and, next month, with the same determination, to demand the rewriting of the common agricultural policy so that this major, central and strategic European public policy meets the healthy ambitions of the Green Deal.

Madam President, this morning, in her State of the Union address, Ms von der Leyen did not say the words ‘peasant’, ‘fisherman’, ‘food’ or ‘agriculture’ once. Apparently, this is not one of his priorities. Yet, according to the UN, 2.3 billion people do not have access to sufficient food and 800 million are hungry every day. The common agricultural policy continues to ruin tens of millions of peasant families in the countries of the South, but also in those of the North. Malnutrition does not only affect Africans or Asians. It is also a reality for millions of our European citizens who must rely on the solidarity of associations to feed themselves. To change this situation, it is necessary to allow the peasants of the world to live with dignity from their work, to no longer be competed with by products sold on the world markets. The CAP only makes things worse. The Farm to Fork Strategy does not even address these issues. There is a need to review the multilateral agreements of the WTO, which are locked in an economy of predation, competition and destruction. We must stop bilateral agreements like Mercosur, which are disastrous for the climate. We must work to bring out food sovereignty as defined by Via Campesina more than 25 years ago.