Debate contributions by João OLIVEIRA

Madam President, the path that best serves the interests of the people, ecological balance and environmental sustainability is the path of harnessing the productive potential of each country, including it in agricultural production, supporting family farming, small farmers, community ownership of common land and promoting local production policies and local consumption. This path requires policies to support production rather than abandoning it. It requires fair payment policies for production. Policies that protect small farmers from wild competition and crushing by large distribution companies. It demands a refusal to favour multinationals and agribusiness. It demands an end to the liberalisation of markets, which destroys producers and production capacity, as has already happened with milk and is now happening with wine. It requires a common agricultural policy geared towards those objectives. Unfortunately, this path is not reflected in the choices made by the European Union and is still missing from this report presented to us by the Commissioner.