Speeches

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the common fisheries policy aims to support fishing communities, sustain fishing stocks, protect the environment and ensure fair distribution of opportunities across the EU. The common fisheries policy is fair for some, but not for all: 85% of the fish that’s taken out of Irish waters is taken by countries other than Ireland, with Ireland getting 15%. When it comes to reciprocal arrangements with third countries, they are worth about 60 million to third countries, but Ireland gets approximately 1 million in return. When it comes to processing those fish, many of the European fish go to Iceland and the Faroe Islands to be processed there, losing the opportunities of the multiplier effect in the local economy in Ireland. And finally, this has all been compounded by Brexit: 40% of the value of fish transfers to the UK came from Ireland; 15% of Irish quota was lost to the UK. The common fisheries policy in many ways serves unsustainable fishing by Norway, Iceland and the Faroe Islands at the expense of countries like Ireland. It’s a common fisheries policy for countries outside the EU and not for some countries within the EU, and we need to ensure that it’s much more sustainable, and we have to make sure that the opportunities that are there are for European fishermen in particular.

Mr President, Commissioner, colleagues, I’d like to thank the rapporteur, Lídia Pereira, and the agricultural opinion rapporteur, Martin Hlaváček, for what has been a very effective process. It represents a win-win, good for the environment and good for agriculture and carbon farming, with the potential to lock carbon into our soils, deliver on carbon capture, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, promote sustainable practices, while at the same time recognising and rewarding the effort of farmers. There’s potential to bring new money into agriculture, but this needs to be funded from outside of CAP. It also needs to allow for private funding as well as public sector funding, and it needs to compensate for the costs involved in the transition. We must ensure that the carbon certification framework is of the highest standard, that it has robust methodologies, ensures additionality, effective monitoring, reporting and verification in order to deliver the highest possible value for the market, for what would be genuine, true carbon credits. Fundamentally, this represents a different approach from other proposals that have gone through this Parliament – other proposals that have been controversial, polarised debate, and ultimately were hollowed out. They sought to force through targets and an agenda, whereas this proposal empowers, incentivizes and encourages, rather than burdens. Ultimately, it’s a carrot approach rather than a stick approach. I call on the Commission to deliver the maximum potential out of this process to ensure that this opportunity is maximised to its full potential in the months and years ahead.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, agriculture, like many sectors, faces numerous challenges: food security, being sustainable, providing for the energy of the future. The people best placed to embrace all these challenges are the new generation. Yet for every farmer under 40, there are 3 farmers over 65: this quite simply is not sustainable. We have to invest in the next generation, we have to invest in research and innovation to endure and then invest in the training and education to disseminate that education to the next generation. We have to invest in access to land for younger people and in access to finance because they don’t have a track record with banks, and they need that track record to invest in the future. But most of all, we have to ensure that there’s a quality of life for young people in agriculture that is similar to their peers in other professions. There has to be less stress, there has to be mechanisation used to reduce the labour needed and most of all, they need to have time to spend with their families so that the children that grow up on those farms have a positive experience of agriculture and will want to be the next farmers of the next generation. We need to invest in that, we need to invest in the rural areas for services, for the standards of living in rural areas and for a digital connection. If we do this, there is a future for agriculture. If we don’t, there isn’t.

Madam President, Commissioner, fellow MEPs, I’d like to begin by thanking the rapporteur, Marlene Mortler, for the comprehensive report and the way it has dealt with the many important issues. We ask our farmers to deliver on food security, traceability and food quality, along with the like of renewable energies, forestry and being custodians of our environment and biodiversity. And what do we give them in return? An Industrial Emissions Directive, a pesticides Directive, a soils Directive, nature restoration targets, animal transport regulations, on-farm animal welfare regulations, sustainable forest management regulations, a Nitrates Directive, food labelling regulations, packaging regulations, additional restrictions under the CAP. Commissioner, you say we’re losing 800 farmers a day, that we need generational renewal. But why would they bother? We need to reduce burdens, reduce red tape and make regulations more flexible and easier to work with, and to create an enabling environment that allows farmers to protect our environment, enhance biodiversity and ensure food security. This is the way forward. This is what we need to do: create an environment that farmers can work with.

Mr President, Commissioner, fellow MEPs, I would like to begin by thanking the rapporteur, Andrey Novakov, my colleague, for the good work he has done on this report. And also I am delighted to have the chance to input as the rapporteur on the transport opinion. There are a number of key issues that have been identified through this report and indeed they have also been identified by a Court of Auditors report. The main issue is that we saw were cost overruns, for instance, which were exacerbated by the Ukrainian war, by material shortages and by the enhanced environmental, legitimate enhanced environmental ambition. Regulatory delays are another key area that are of concern and the administrative burden that is associated with many of the projects and an excessive administrative burden along with these delays caused by planning objections. I know in my own country we have a significant issue with serial objections to planning that are delaying many of the projects. In many ways, this is sometimes due to a lack of early engagement that allows people to understand the nature of a project and allay fears at an early stage. This, in turn, has led to significant delays in many large-scale infrastructure projects. The Court of Auditors identified in many cases up to 11 years of a delay, which just quite simply is not good enough. There is also a need to align EU and Member States strategies. In many cases, Member States prioritise particularly their transport networks around their capitals. But we need this to spread across the various countries. We need to tackle many of these issues around cost overruns, around regulatory delays and around the need to address, if you like, the effect of engagement with the ordinary public because if we don’t have large infrastructure projects will overrun and will run over time, and that that quite simply is not good enough.

Mr President, and in particular Commissioner McGuinness, you’ve always had a great understanding of the issues in agriculture and it’s great to have you here today. However, one has to ask the question: where is the agricultural Commissioner? And where is the practical input that is sorely missing from this debate? Farmers fully accept that there is a biodiversity and indeed an environmental crisis, but they want to and can be part of the solution. They understand biodiversity and they understand the environment better than anybody. They work in it every day. But the proposed legislation, nature restoration in particular, does little to enhance biodiversity. Drawing lines in the map does little to enhance biodiversity. There is a fundamental problem. The current legislation pits food production against the environment, puts them on the opposite ends of the same spectrum. We need to enable biodiversity to flourish in an active, productive model. If we don’t do this, it quite simply won’t work. The Commissioner talked about carbon farming. Well, legislation leaves no room for the additionality that’s required in carbon farming. We need to stop legislating, stop lecturing and stop pontificating. We need to empower, enable and work with – that’s how we’ll get real change in agriculture.

Mr President, I wish to thank the Commissioner for coming here today to discuss this very important issue. We all see how food prices across Europe have increased enormously over the last number of months, and the key component to all that is the cost of inputs at farm level, and key to that is fertiliser. Two key driving factors that drove the cost of fertiliser are the lack of imports due to the war in Ukraine and the price of gas. Frankly, in my opinion, you said that you’ve responded – but, well, the response has not been enough. We need additional measures. We need additional funding to support the industry in the short term. We need to remove the anti-dumping measures and to ensure that there is a supply of both the raw material, of the like of gas, and indeed a supply of fertiliser in the coming months ahead. Unless we do this, food prices will continue to increase. Quite simply, we can’t afford to allow that happen. In the longer term, we have to look at a situation where we wean ourselves off the dependency on fertiliser. We all agree that the use of the like of clover, the use of the like of organic materials, has enormous potential, but there needs to be additional funding to help farmers to achieve that. The crisis reserve has been talked about in the past as the solution. The crisis reserve has meant only EUR 50 per farmer, and is quite simply not enough. We also need – as you mentioned yourself – to act as regards soil fertility. If we have the proper soil fertility, we will need less fertiliser. So through the CAP, and through other measures, we have to help farmers to ensure that their soil fertility is appropriate. But one particular issue that concerns me, particularly at the moment, is that there is distortion within the market. I was looking at figures there this week with a variation where in some parts of Europe, say for instance like Germany, or indeed the UK or in other parts of the world, fertiliser prices have dropped by up to 40%, while in other parts, they haven’t. We need a fertiliser observatory to ensure that there is an equivalent all across Europe in terms of fertilisers, and we also need to ensure across the board that every country is treated equally. You have left it that individual countries act on their own. We need a European response, so an equivalent response across each country, across Europe, and there isn’t this discrepancy where some countries have invested in their own industry and others happened haven’t. We need an observatory for transparency across Europe and we need European intervention to support all countries, not just some.

Madam President, Commissioner, I would like to welcome this new report on small-scale fisheries. They play an enormous role in our local communities: they employ local crews; they multiply what they bring into the economy through selling seafood in the local restaurants; they enhance tourism and preserve a culture and a tradition that is very important. They’ve faced many challenges in recent years through COVID, Brexit and the energy crisis – no different than any other business. But this CFP review offers an opportunity for small fisheries, particularly under Article 17, where we can ensure that small fisheries get resources and indeed quotas specifically allocated toward them. In relation to Ireland, the abundance of bluefin tuna that’s in Irish waters and virtually the minimum amount of it that is collected by Irish fisheries – we need to ensure that international trawlers aren’t reaping the benefit of that, that it comes to the local, indigenous community that has been hit so hard by the impact of Brexit. If you look also in relation to the Norwegian situation, where Norwegian fisheries are looking to access Irish waters – 400 000 tonnes of fisheries – we need to address this. Irish fisheries have a tiny percentage compared to that, and this needs to be addressed. Small-scale fisheries represent 76% of the fleet. They represent 50% of the jobs. And yet they only catch 5.8% percent of the fish. They are the least damaging environmentally and they need to be regarded and supported, as do fisheries in general in Ireland, which have been so badly impacted by Brexit.

Mr President, Commissioner, to quote your own words in relation to what are you doing in is, ‘I keep talking about it’. That’s the translation that came to me. Surely the money you talk about – the 500 million crisis reserve fund – that is part of the existing budget. My question is, what additional money and what new efforts have been made? First with regard to providing additional money, but equally to ensure an increase in supply of fertilizer to drive more competition into the market and drive down prices, to generally reduce the costs of production and to ensure that, for those vulnerable people all across Europe, we can provide cheap and affordable food.

We’ve all seen from the last year just how vulnerable our food supply is and how vulnerable food security is and how it has impacted on so many people. Well, I’ve listened to the figures you’ve given us here today where less than point 4% of GDP is spent on food production and only 500 million of a crisis reserve. Well, if you divide that out by 10 million farmers, that’s less than EUR 50 per farmer across Europe. Well, I have one question for you as the farmers’ representative within the Commission: what are you doing to increase that budget? What are you doing to reduce them input costs? What are you doing to increase fertilizer supply? Because clearly these are issues that are driving up the price of food across Europe. And we want to know what the representative for agriculture is doing within the Commission to address this situation.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we’re all very concerned about the overloaded nature of our main airports. Everybody in this Chamber has experienced in the last 12 months the endless delays and the frustration coming through airports due to staff shortages and various other issues. A previous speaker suggested that the COVID issues had passed. Well today I spent five hours sitting on a plane in Dublin airport on the ground because there was no capability to de-ice the plane. We were left with no food and we couldn’t leave the plane. We need to invest in resources to properly equip our airports so that situations like this don’t happen. We need to ensure that our ground staff are properly paid, resourced and trained so that they too can help this situation. I ask you, where were passengers’ rights in respect to this situation today? Where were we or where are we being considered in this scenario? In Ireland, 85% of the flights go through the main Dublin airport. It quite simply can’t handle it all. We need to invest in our regional airports to ensure that they are built with proper capacity to handle additional aircraft. This would reduce congestion and would also lead to greater tourism in our regions. We also have to ensure that the like of SAF and renewable technologies cannot be just the preserve of our hub airports. They need to be available to rural and indeed the regional airports. Our last debate was about a long-term vision for rural areas, but I think we have to include our aviation strategy as regards the rural areas as well, because we need to ensure that connectivity to the regions is just as important as connectivity to our main cities.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, for too long rural areas have been left behind, with our best talent moving away for education and employment opportunities. For the first time we have a chance to turn this around. We can embrace a new generation of opportunities, whether it’s remote working that can bring highly skilled people back into rural areas and let them rear a family and breathe life into rural communities, or tourism that can bring much—needed revenue into rural areas. But most importantly, renewable energies can bring industry and employment and rebalance the economic driver back into our rural areas. But we must ensure that the revenue from these new opportunities remains in rural economies and drives the rural economies and is not exported out to other areas. We need to create the right environment. We need broadband. We need to reinvigorate our town centres to make them vibrant places for people to live. We need to create the educational opportunities for people in rural areas, the very same as there are available in urban areas. We also have to acknowledge that agriculture has always been and remains a cornerstone of rural communities. It’s the biggest multiplier in the rural economies. It’s the heart of our food production system and is central to protecting our biodiversity and building a sustainable environment into the future.

Mr President, Commissioner, fellow Members, we’ve all seen the dramatic increase in food prices. Unfortunately for some, increased food prices mean unaffordability and mean hunger. Two hundred million people already face food insecurity, and that’s only set to get worse. There are a number of things that are critical to address in food security. The UN-brokered Black Sea grain deal has been a great success. Seven million tonnes of grain have been exported from the Ukraine, and have been vital for the vulnerable. However, this deal is set to end in November. It is vital that we ensure that this deal continues and that the true value of this deal will only be really achieved in the long term. We cannot let Putin link vital humanitarian action with economic sanctions. Equally, fertiliser must pass, it plays a very important part: 60% of food production is dependent on fertiliser. Essentially, if with no fertiliser, with no food. But it’s not just about the war. We have other challenges as well in the longer term: climate, sustainability, a growing population. We must act now. In the long term, we must create a sustainable model. We must recognise the critical interplay between food, energy and sustainability. We must invest in new technologies that will help us address the challenges. And we must continue to use fertiliser, pesticides and other aid to production in a sensible, sustainable way. And critically, in the short term, we must continue to get our grain exports out of Ukraine, and we must ensure that we have fertiliser next spring. Communication, words are not enough; we need action now, not next spring, if we are to ensure our food security in the coming weeks, months and years ahead.

Madam President, Commissioner and fellow Members, I welcome this debate this evening. There has not been enough focus on the role of Belarus in this war. By being complicit, Lukashenko is part of Putin’s war machine. Mr Lukashenko, it’s clear the people of Belarus do not want this war. The Belarusian people want freedom and democracy. They want rid of Putin and they want rid of you. They stood against you in 2020 and they stand against you still today. You say you can’t pay your foreign debt because of sanctions. Well there’s a simple solution: remove the Russian troops from your country and back the heroic Ukrainian people. If not, you will pay an even higher price. We in Europe must get tougher on those who side with Putin. If Lukashenko continues to go down this road, his regime should be hit with the same sanctions as Russia. They must be held accountable for their actions. We must support the democratic people of Belarus, the people that were elected in 2020. If Europe backs democracy, Europe will thrive. And I ask you today to support Ukraine, support the opposition in Belarus, and we must do more to support them and ensure that Putin’s war comes to an end as soon as possible.

Mr President, I’d like to thank the Commissioner for taking the time to be here today and indeed, for his comments as regards coming forward with a proposal. It’s estimated that fertiliser is responsible for 40 to 60% of world food production. And prior to the war, 60% of fertiliser imports came from Belarus or Russia. In Ireland, for example, fertiliser prices prior to the war were EUR 280 a tonne and have gone to EUR 1 000 a tonne. This is quite simply unsustainable, and we need measures to address this situation. The anti—dumping measures need to be removed to allow product to come in from abroad. But we also need to build our own capacity here, in Europe, to be able to produce our own fertiliser. And we need to source gas from elsewhere, or alternatively, products from other parts of the world to ensure that we can supply the need that’s there. Equally, as regards trading in fertilisers, there is a major issue where people don’t have the confidence to go out into the market at the moment for fear the price will be dropped and they’ll be left exposed. So traders are afraid of being exposed, and they also need finance to ensure that they can go into that market and secure that, because you’re talking about three times the amount of money that was previously needed. As others have said, we need to move away from our dependency on synthetic fertilisers. In Ireland, we’re looking at things like clover and the development of other types of organic fertilisers. But this will take time. This will take a number of years. And frankly, I wanted this to be brought forward today – I asked for this to be brought forward today – because I believe in the short term, we need emergency measures, we need to act now for next spring. Quite simply, next spring will be too late. It’s as simple as this: expensive fertiliser means expensive food. Expensive food means it’s just not affordable for some people. And that, in its own way can lead to, we’ll say, the likes of famine in parts of the world or here, in Europe, people are under pressure to afford that food. So we need to act. We need to act now. And I’d just like to thank my colleagues Mr Dorfmann and Mr Lins for their support in bringing this forward here today.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to welcome this action plan on organics and the recognition that any expansion has to be market-led. Organics by its nature has a higher cost base and it needs a premium price in order to fund the costs involved. If it’s saturated, it undermines that market for new producers but also for existing producers who have invested heavily in the industry. We also need to simplify procedures to make it more accessible for new entrants. There’s a need for research and development, particularly into plant varieties that are more suitable to organics, but particularly into farm practices which are fundamentally different from traditional agricultural practices. Ireland has shown its commitment to organics going forward. It had traditionally a very low level, and it has increased its investment fivefold and it has a target of 7.5% organics by 2027. Organics has a key part to play alongside conventional agriculture. It’s vital that we get the strategy correct.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to welcome this report on animal welfare carried out by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and thank the rapporteur and shadow rapporteur for the good work. It recognises the general high standard of animal welfare that exists across the EU. However, it is clear improvements can be made to bring about greater consistency across the Union. This report recognises that any updated rules must be based on scientific data, impact assessments and a species-by-species approach that takes account of the individual needs. Science rather than sentiment is key to a successful outcome, and it must be coupled with practical experience. We have to ensure that the least performing are brought up to standard, rather than setting ever higher standards for those who are endeavouring to comply. A voluntary labelling system champions those who deliver on best practice; making it mandatory fails to recognise their special efforts. The report recognises that changing practices designed to improve animal welfare come at a cost, and additional support must be provided outside of the common agricultural policy. The CAP alone won’t be enough. Farmers and consumers are at one in the belief that respect for animals and animal welfare is paramount and should be central to our farming practices.

Madam President, the aim of this committee was to investigate non-compliance and ensure best practice in animal transport. It’s vital that we focus on improving the standards of those who are non-compliant rather than ensuring ever higher standards for those who are doing their best to comply. We saw examples of non-compliance that none of us could be proud of, and it’s something we need to address more. I believe that the use of technologies such as GPS tracking, temperature monitoring, and also things like priority lanes and the many other measures that were put in place, will do much to address these issues. I would like to give particular recognition to Daniel Buda for his efforts in building consensus throughout the committee, and recognising the challenges and how we could address them through our work. Experts who have reported to the committee recognise the particularly high standards in Ireland. However, I’m concerned that two of the alternative proposals tabled at the last minute will undermine those very good standards. In particular, the idea of tying farmers’ hands so that their only option is to move calves to holding centres at five weeks of age makes no sense. This is unworkable and not thought out. It will do more to harm animal welfare and cause these problems, and cause stress to animals, farmers and hauliers alike. You have to remember that these people have a love of the industry they’re involved in. They’re proud of the work to do, and they love and care for the animals they work with. They want standards in this as much as anyone else, and they don’t want people bringing their name down. The original compromises that were put forward by the committee were sensible and based on good science. Farmers are relying on us to get this right because they’ll be the ones that will deal with the consequences. The people who make suggestions and proposals and then expect others to deliver them, where will they be when their proposals won’t work correctly? So I ask you to stick to the science and recognise the good proposals that were put forward by the committee and, by doing so, we can ensure that we will have the best practice for the industry going forward.

Mr President, as we vote on this CAP today, we must not lose sight of its main objective: supporting a fair standard of living for 10 million farmers, safeguarding a safe food supply for 450 million people, and sustaining healthy and vibrant rural communities. These are traditional goals of CAP, but we’re also seeking to significantly to address our environmental challenges. This can only be done in an effective and practical way by involving farmers, who must be at the heart of driving this change. There is significant responsibility on Member States in the development of their strategic plans. It’s vital that farmers have a major input into these, so that there’s major buy—in from farming. They have to be sensible and achievable and make a meaningful difference to the environment and to farm viability. They must provide a wide range of eco schemes that give farmers options to ensure that they can develop to deliver their environmental responsibility and also protect farm incomes and the multiplier that is in the economy, while also investing in the long—term future of the next generation of young farmers who will lead the way forward into the future. However, I firmly believe that we cannot deliver it solely through the CAP. We need to look at other issues, such as carbon farming, how our lands can sequester carbon, how we can improve our biodiversity and increase our renewable energy sector for ever—increasing energy demands. While CAP gives farmers certainty, it’s only one step and we need to ensure a viable future for farming.

Madam President, we all know that global warming is the challenge of our time, and after carbon, methane is key among the gases that we need to address. But if we are to solve the methane problem, we need to recognise the different sources of methane and the different approaches needed. Biogenic methane is just one of the key sources that needs to be addressed. Science recognises that biogenic methane is essentially a 12-year cycle, and we need to reduce the amount of methane being produced in that cycle by the animals, as opposed to an ideological and unrealistic position of eliminating the animals altogether. Research and technology has shown us that we have tools. Things like dietary supplements, advances in breeding, manure management and greater use of pasture based systems can be key to solving the problem. I’ve put forward sensible, constructive, practical solutions that could create the framework to allow this to happen. Farmers also want to play their part. They are probably closer to nature than anybody. For most farmers, their love of nature and the environment is the very reason why they became farmers in the first place. I believe farmers who are closest to the problem are best placed to solve the problem, but we have to give them the tools and the chance to get on with it.

Madam President, I would like to welcome the overall Farm to Fork Strategy. While the targets are very challenging, I believe that, by and large, it can be achieved through modern science, smart and precision farming and the use of natural solutions, such as clover as a fertiliser. However, I am also concerned that the combined effect of the target within the strategy could lead to unintended consequences. I believe there is a need for a robust impact assessment, and I am very disappointed that previous impact assessments have not been taken on board. I am also concerned at the failure of the Commission to publish the Joint Research Centre (JRC) study. I believe this undermines confidence in the strategy. Finally, the strategy must be invested in through the common agricultural policy (CAP) and other funding as well to ensure the objectives are successful and, most of all, to ensure that the viability of family farming across Europe is not undermined.