Speeches

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the two reports on propagating material on which we will vote tomorrow are of paramount importance in the fight against climate change. This includes improving the resilience of plant varieties, but also forest material, and promoting biodiversity. I also welcome the national contingency plans for European forests, and I invite you to support the text from the Committee on Agriculture. On the other hand, as regards plant reproductive material, the document on the table is unbalanced, due to the extent of the derogations that are provided for in the legislation that we propose, which allows the circulation of large quantities of material without any guarantee as to their quality or their ability to control certain pests. This could lead to parallel markets and fraud. I am in favour of finding a balance that provides a legal framework for all plant material, while ensuring a significant number of exceptions to facilitate operations to promote biodiversity and conservation. I therefore believe that significant changes must be made to this report, without ruling out any relaxation of the Commission’s initial proposal.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the analysis of the implementation of cohesion policy 2014-2020 allows us to draw useful lessons about its future. I'm going to talk to you about rural areas. It is important for me to correct the imbalance between rural and urban areas, which today characterises cohesion policy, by devoting a percentage of its budget to rural areas, following the same principle as that applied to urban areas. We need to make programmes more flexible to take account of sub-regional disparities. And above all, let's simplify, let's simplify, let's simplify! Let’s be bold! The tools exist: simplified costs, public procurement procedures, articulation of different cohesion policies with State aid rules. Let us set up the single audit, the one-stop-shops for beneficiaries, and avoid over-transposition. The beating heart of European democracy is located in the small villages of our Union, let us ensure that they are also the beating heart of our cohesion policy.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as we do every year in this Parliament, we celebrate the International Day to Combat Violence against Women. Every year we see that we have not made much progress and that the number of femicides is increasing rather than decreasing. Yet many European countries have put in place mechanisms stemming from the Istanbul Convention, and adopted courageous legislation. Of course, the European directive will mark a fundamental step forward in the fight against gender-based violence. But let us look, when we talk about gender-based violence, we do so in an empty hemicycle where men speak very little. They do not express their indignation, or if they do, they are too little to do so. Beyond laws, beyond standards, we need a cultural revolution. When will we have demonstrations by men against gender-based violence on our streets? Every cultural revolution starts with and from school: Relational and emotional life education courses exist in some countries. I therefore ask the Commission to consider how to make this mechanism European, because unfortunately, it is urgent to teach our children that they do not: Possession, control, jealousy, it is not love, it is the legacy of a macho culture that we must fight together, men and women.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, how are we going to achieve the objectives of the Green Deal or the Farm to Fork Strategy, how are we going to continue to eat good products made in Europe if we no longer have farmers? By 2026, a farmer will retire to France. In some countries, 90% estimates are used. In France, again, 1% of farmers are under the age of 25, and the average age of establishment is 36. Climate change, environmental constraints, rising production costs, difficult access to bank loans, problem of access to land and external competition: These factors discourage young people from entering the agricultural sector. If we want a competitive agriculture that can meet all the challenges, we need to invest in the CAP. Young farmers need medium- and long-term income security. Only a strong policy can provide guarantees for new entrants. Finally, it is imperative to combat theagribashing, against the negative image of our agriculture – which, however, feeds us – which some politicians have fun spreading and which does not encourage young people to invest in this sector. We need young farmers to ensure the prosperity of our rural areas. Young farmers, we love you! Farmers, we love you! And we'll keep saying it!

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, with this own-initiative report, we are asking the Commission to urgently present a comprehensive EU protein strategy. We have been waiting for it for a really long time and, frankly, it is time to make it a priority. COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine have had a dramatic impact on world trade and have made it extremely clear to us that our Union must work on its food sovereignty. Keep in mind that whenever a food is not produced on European soil, it is imported from a third country, with a negative environmental impact. That is why we need to produce more and better, but we also need to produce at home. To consider growing protein-rich plants for food on set-aside land is a common sense request, which I invite the Commission to listen to. Colleagues, when we talk about proteins, we are talking about plant and animal proteins. Let us stop opposing the two. Let's stop criminalizing meat. I would like to conclude by saying that no, the future of protein food in Europe for us humans is not artificial meat or insects, but rather our livestock and agriculture, which shape our landscapes, sustain our rural areas and contribute to biodiversity.

Madam President, Commissioner, the committee's proposal on glyphosate is unacceptable, disrespectful of the progress made by farmers and inconsistent. By allowing glyphosate for ten years with the only restriction of use being the desiccation of cereals, you are opening the door to differentiation between Member States, even though the Commission's mission is to ensure health for all Europeans. And it seems to me that, depending on the uses, the risks are the same, whether they are German cereals or French cereals, whether they are French farmers or Romanian farmers. It seems to me that our businesses and consumers exist and live in a single market governed by the free movement of goods. We want common rules. We are tired of distortions of competition within the single market. It is also a sad step backwards, disrespectful of all the progress that farmers have made. And I would really like to greet all those who have passed on mechanical solutions that have embarked on plant cover. But we have dead ends. And there is an inconsistency. Soil conservation agriculture, the one that does not plough, the one that is the future of reducing our greenhouse gas emissions while continuing to eat good European food, it asks for the authorization of glyphosate. What do we tell them? They are told to plow where it is allowed. We must have European rules on the authorisation of glyphosate that leave no agricultural sector without a solution.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, we can all welcome this new legislation, which aims to protect human health and the environment. However, the principle of proportionality must be borne in mind. Botanical products such as essential oils deserve a separate treatment to distinguish them from petrochemical products. In addressing the issue of petrochemicals, this revision of the legislation should not cause unnecessary harm to aromatic plant growers and other actors in the chain. It is a predominantly artisanal sector, based on a sector composed of small farmers, small producers who play an extremely important role in maintaining biodiversity. I would like to point out that, in France alone, the lavender and lavender sector alone generates more than 9 000 direct jobs and 17 000 indirect jobs. Alongside this sector, other sectors are developing that bring honey and tourism to rural areas. I therefore ask you to support a derogation for substances of botanical origin in order to maintain their current classification system. It is not a question of exempting them, but of taking account of their specificity and, in so doing, of keeping our magnificent landscapes of Provence with these lavender fields, with this valley of the rose, with these smells, it smells good, they are beautiful products. It is our intangible, agricultural, common, European heritage.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, nine out of ten women are victims of harassment in public transport and 3% of sexual assault cases in Europe are recorded in transport. This is an extremely painful reality. In order to deal with this blatant security problem, it is essential to put in place fast and appropriate solutions throughout Europe. For example, an emergency number so that witnesses of an attack can report it, training for field workers on the issue of harassment to accompany victims, increasing the number of staff in transport, stopping on demand on night buses so that the driver drops the passenger as close as possible to her home. Above all, we need to think about co-building transport arrangements with feminist associations to take into account all the specific needs of women, such as strollers, as well as all the security perceived by women. But security is not the only area where we need to intervene urgently. European women also face intolerable discrimination when seeking employment in the transport sector. Gender stereotypes, working conditions, contracts, low-quality pay are the main causes of women's low participation in this sector. Building a Europe of equality means rethinking a fair and equal society where women can travel safely and where their jobs are valued. In 2023, it is high time to act for women.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, important work has been initiated to prevent and manage natural disasters, in particular solidarity between European countries, with rescEU, but also vis-à-vis third countries, as we have seen in Canada. It is there, it is effective, that is how we will manage to fight. However, all too often the Commission works in silos, whereas on this issue we need to have cross-cutting policies. In the same way that we think, every time we make a law, to reduce our emissions, we should ask ourselves, every time we make a law, whether that law increases or decreases the risk of natural disaster. I am thinking, for example, of dead wood in the Nature Restoration Regulation, which, in all areas where the soil is dry – and God knows that there are more and more of them in forests – increases both the risk of fire and the risk of flooding and mudslides. It is not me who says it, it is our firefighters. They are the ones we must listen to. I also ask the Commission to make better use of the work that our farmers and farmers do, particularly pastoralism. Grazing is essential in preventing natural hazards and enables sustainable forest management and exploitation. And then, of course, to resist and protect themselves, citizens must be aware of the risk. We need to have a big day of awareness of European risks. It exists in other countries. No European citizen, on holiday or at home, should ignore the risk to which he is subjected and what are the right actions to stay alive.

Madam President, my country, France, has been in a water deficit for three consecutive years. Drought is progressing inexorably from the south of our European Union to the north. It particularly affects European farmers, who are responsible for our food security, and risks jeopardising the quality of life of our fellow citizens, not to mention the increase in fires, even in winter. Crops are already very affected, but so are grasslands, as there is no question of irrigating them. In the face of rapidly accelerating climate change, we also need very rapid solutions to improve water management. The new CAP introduced new restrictions on investments to increase irrigated areas. Innovative solutions must therefore be put in place. My country, France, is working on it under its Varenne de l’eau programme, but we need solutions at European level. So what do we have to do? First of all, the construction of rainwater tanks and the use of wastewater in the agricultural sector should be encouraged. We need to make better use of this resource. Secondly, there is a need to increase crop resilience, and for this to happen, the debate on new genomic techniques must be addressed without taboos and without delay. In my opinion, the Commission proposal we are waiting for is already very late. Thirdly, we need to promote the introduction of more resistant varieties and help farmers move to more water-efficient agronomic practices. Finally, I would like to stress the need to implement effective insurance systems at European level that limit the level of distress of our farmers in the face of climate change. Together, let’s reduce our water consumption, reuse water and substitute water use, prioritising human consumption and farmers.

Madam President, Commissioner, first of all I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, dear Paolo, on thanking you and all the political groups for their constructive work on this dossier, which received a full unanimous vote in the Agriculture Committee. I therefore invite you, ladies and gentlemen, to support this text in its version at tomorrow's vote. I believe that this report will enable us to tackle trilogues in a strong position. I particularly welcome the compromise we have found to preserve the specificity of wine, which is a key sector in terms of geographical indication. If I understand what the Commissioner has said about administrative simplification, we have to ask ourselves who it is for. Is it administrative simplification for the Commission or for producer organisations? For me, this is clearly for producers. I have therefore fought to find a balanced solution that also takes into account the need to simplify these procedures. And I now hope that the wine package contained in this report will be welcomed by the Council. Wine has always played a leading role in improving the GI regime and it would be a pity to condemn it to stagnation. I am also pleased that Parliament has spoken out against the outsourcing of GI management tasks, which must remain in the hands of the Commission’s DG AGRI. The quality product system is a key element of the CAP, the transfer of functions to the EUIPO was a dangerous precedent. Thank you all. Good vote tomorrow.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, European agriculture is the most sustainable agriculture in the world. And yet, when I hear some people talking in this Chamber, I do not feel that they are talking about the same farmers that I know. Those who, at this very moment, because many texts have been voted on, are in the process of changing their practices, and who are facing an IT system that does not make it possible to grasp the new common agricultural policy today. Those who are desperately waiting for delegated acts, because depending on whether or not there is the word ‘or’, we are emerging from an industrial impasse. Those who wonder why, at the level of the Commission expert group on the agricultural taxonomy, there is not a single representative of agriculture and who suddenly have banks that tell them ‘we will not be able to follow you on your renewable energy projects’. So yes, of course, European farmers are interested in the environment, and they are interested in climate change, otherwise we would not have the most sustainable agriculture in the world. But thankfully, let’s be at the rendezvous, all united so that all the texts we produce can be applied simply by our farmers.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I would like to address the gentlemen of this camp who are obviously talking about the Istanbul Convention without knowing it. The Istanbul Convention is an extraordinary legislative tool, and you can go to the GREVIO website and you will be able to see in your country that has ratified the Convention, all the best practices that are exchanged between Member States with very good results. And that is why we must be at the rendezvous of history tomorrow. Six Member States have not ratified, that is six too many. We've been waiting six years. Tomorrow we must respond to women who suffer physical and sexual violence in our Union. One in three. During the pandemic, this violence increased. We cannot wait any longer to ratify the Convention and to have harmonised definitions of violence against women, as well as this comprehensive framework of legal and political measures to prevent violence, support victims and punish perpetrators. Tomorrow's vote is a historic opportunity to definitively demonstrate that the European Parliament stands with women and girls: Every vote counts. Colleagues, it is the lives and rights of our mothers, sisters and daughters that must be protected. We have no excuse.

Dear colleague, I still have a question: because to avoid violence, education is the best solution. I would like to greet the college students from Salagou who are here. What image do we give these children, these girls, these boys and especially these teachers, if we refuse to explain the difference in school? It is because the difference will be explained at school that there will be no violence in adult life afterwards. So what do you say to this refusal to want to educate about gender in school?

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, PFAS are everywhere: in our clothing, food packaging, fire-fighting foams, non-stick coatings, cosmetics, phytosanitary products. These chemicals are eternal. So we have to ban them. Commissioner, you have the legislative initiative. I think it is important to move quickly by taking up the proposal put forward by France, Germany and several Member States. Let us not forget that, in rivers, most of the PFAS is found downstream of discharges from large agglomerations and next to airports. This means that, at the same time as we have to ban these products, given their persistence, we will have to clean up the discharges anyway. And it won't happen on its own. This will be done through a proactive European policy of equipping treatment sites to stop sending PFAS to our rivers, to our drinking water. It is life that depends on it.

Mr President, Commissioner, Minister, his name was Lucas, he was thirteen years old. He was educated in Golbey, in the Vosges. He had life ahead of him. However, on January 7, because of the constant harassment he suffered, Lucas died. Yet he assumed his homosexuality. He was mocked by his comrades. Her parents had told her about this in September at her school during meetings between parents and teachers. Yet he continued to suffer. He was harassed with regard to his outfit, his way of being, what he released. Homophobia killed him, discrimination killed him. By delaying the adoption of the horizontal directive, you are depriving more than 500 million people of effective protection against discrimination. Every day, hundreds of complaints of discrimination based on age, religion, disability and sexual orientation are lodged in our Union. However, our capacity to support victims of discrimination remains severely limited. So for all the Lucases in our union, let's be brave, let's not let a few governments take our rights hostage. Let us move forward on this horizontal anti-discrimination directive.

Madam President, Commissioner and Minister, ladies and gentlemen, two years ago, on 8 March, I was in Poland. The abortion law had not yet been passed, but I was able to see the pressure on activists who were in the service of women. They no longer had windows in their offices because they were so cobbled up, they were wooden planks. They were under this pressure when the law had not yet passed. And already back then, they told us, and parliamentarians told us: We will have to defend the people who will help women to have an abortion in Poland when abortion is illegal. Because the reality is what we're talking about is that when we ban abortion, we ban safe and legal abortion, we put women's lives at risk. And then there are other women who do their solidarity work and help them. Justyna, let's talk about it, what did she do? An abortion pill for a woman who is a victim of violence. And for that she is condemned. So not only do I urgently call on the Polish government to reverse its decision and put an end to this witch hunt, but above all I call on the Commission and the Council to set up a system to protect activists, to protect rights, to recognise their legitimate work and to provide this tool with sufficient budgets.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, fertilisers are the Achilles heel of European agriculture. Their shortage can lead to the collapse of the entire food chain, as they are involved in the production of 50% of our food. European farmers absolutely cannot afford price increases that reached 150% of the pre-war level in Ukraine. We need short-term, medium-term and long-term measures. In the very short term, European farmers must have solutions for spring sowing, and we will not be able to count on the agricultural crisis reserve, which is not the right size to cover their needs. Increasing state aid is also not the solution, if we want to avoid distortions of competition within the single market. Additional EU funds are needed until the Common Agricultural Policy budget is increased. In the medium and long term, encourage industry to develop sustainable production that builds on the green transition. Research and innovation need a boost to wean the EU from its dependence on fossil fertilisers.

Mr President, Commissioner, Minister, ladies and gentlemen, equality between women and men is a matter of human rights, and it is a condition of social justice. These are the words of the first point of the Beijing Declaration. Yet, in 2023, we are far from achieving the objectives of this declaration. The resolution we are voting on tomorrow is therefore particularly important in order to make our recommendations to the Council for the annual session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. Our demands are ambitious – on women’s empowerment, on the fight against violence, on the right to dispose of one’s body – and they should be unanimous in our Parliament. However, this is not the case. I regret that one political group missed the umpteenth opportunity to defend women’s rights in practice and presented a rather medieval alternative text. I therefore call on you, ladies and gentlemen, to vote overwhelmingly in favour of the text we negotiated in the FEMM Committee. Not a single voice should be missing to defend our right to abortion, our body, our choices, our rights.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, thank you and, first of all, congratulations to Isabel Carvalhais and all the shadow rapporteurs on the quality of this report. I have happy rurality and conquering rurality, because I believe that rural areas are where we have the solutions for the European Green Deal, inter alia through the digital transition and the long-term vision for rural areas, which allows us to have the roadmap to build a stronger, better connected and more resilient rural Europe. Rural Europe is also the place where virtuous initiatives such as the Leader programme are developing. It is through this programme that we achieve a Europe of proximity and a Europe of engaged citizens. Rurality is the environment for social innovation: the different actors come together, new ideas are stimulated and new partnerships are created, with a participatory method that engages the local population. The participatory nature of Leader and its brilliant results have been the basis of this new impetus for rurality. It is therefore essential to strengthen the Leader programme, to ensure that rural areas receive an adequate percentage of EU funds, given that they represent 80% of the EU’s territory, and to develop a rural reflex that leads policy-makers like us to integrate the rural dimension in a cross-cutting way into all European and national public policies.

Mr President, Commissioner, thank you very much for these elements. I agree with you: Fertilisers are the food of tomorrow. On the other hand, it has already been known since this summer that increasing CO2 in the atmosphere and extreme temperatures have a negative impact on the yields of our crops. We therefore need new research tools, including for the poorest countries. I regret the slowness of the work on presenting a project at European level on these new genomic editing techniques and I wanted to know when the Commission intended to present this text, which we so much need for research, to eat the day after tomorrow?

Mr President, Commissioner, the Black Sea Agreement is too fragile. It leaves us at the mercy of Putin's free will. I therefore have a series of questions for the Commission in order for us to succeed in this goal of getting out of this dependency. First, what measures will you put in place to establish secure land corridors and with what timeline? In addition to providing much-needed fertilisers for the most fragile countries in the short term, what could the European Union do to help make agricultural systems, particularly those in African countries, more resilient, particularly in terms of digitalisation? Third, only 1% of African arable land has an irrigation system. Has the Commission planned investment plans in irrigation infrastructure? Drought management is essential. Finally, does the Commission plan to work with its African Union partners on a plan for indigenous plant proteins, such as cowpea, to improve food security in the poorest countries?

Madam President, Commissioner, the Commission communication is very welcome, although I would have preferred a text that articulates a real strategy at European level. I would also like to take this opportunity to ask the Commission to consider the establishment of such a European strategy. Indeed, it is not through imports that we will solve the problem of fertilisers, it is through industrial sovereignty, which must be strengthened in our Union, with incentives for innovation, to develop fertilisers that do not depend on fossil fuels. A European strategy should also be undertaken to increase protein crop production. They are less fertiliser-intensive, which would at the same time reduce Europe’s dependence on imports of animal feed products. France has put in place incentives to boost protein production as part of its national strategic plan. I think we need a concerted initiative at European level. Finally, I would like to stress the need to promote varietal change and investment in precision farming, in order to improve the use of fertilisers and speed up the introduction of new genomic techniques in the European Union.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like the European Parliament to call on the G20 countries to make a firm commitment to help the poorest countries strengthen their food security. These countries are the first victims of Putin’s blackmail on food supplies in his war against Ukraine. In the short term, measures need to be taken swiftly with initiatives such as the "crop rescue" operation promoted by the French government. Indeed, enough fertiliser is needed for poorer countries to be able to produce their own food. In the long term, we must also help them to wean themselves from their dependence on the rest of the world. Improving the sustainability and resilience of their production to climate change is essential. We also need to invest in research and innovation. I therefore regret that the European Commission’s proposal on new genetic editing techniques is not expected until the last half of 2023. There is an urgent need to find effective solutions to reduce input consumption, which would have a dual economic and environmental benefit.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, since man became a man, he has mastered nature and produced his food with agricultural gestures, using fertilisers. Fertiliser use is not linked to industrial agriculture, it has been inherent in the development of agriculture for tens of thousands of years. Fertilisers are therefore essential, as without them there is no viable and sustainable food chain in our Union. I would remind you that, even before the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, more than 16 million Europeans were receiving food aid. For our food sovereignty, for every European to have access to quality food, we must therefore have a strong European fertiliser strategy. I would like to thank President Macron for his operation to rescue fertilisers within the United Nations, including for the most disadvantaged countries. In Europe, we must act quickly. In the short term, by diversifying sources of supply and paying part of the electricity companies’ over-profits to the European fertiliser industry to help it cope with rising gas prices; in the long term... (The Chair withdrew the floor from the speaker)