Verbatim report of proceedings

Tuesday, 19 June 2007 - Strasbourg

20. Aid for farmers affected by frost damage (debate)

  President. The final item is the debate on the oral question to the Commission on aid for Polish farmers affected by frost damage, by Zdzisław Zbigniew Podkański, Roberta Angelilli, Liam Aylward, Peter Baco, Sergio Berlato, Adam Bielan, Martin Callanan, Paulo Casaca, Sylwester Chruszcz, Brian Crowley, Marek Aleksander Czarnecki, Joseph Daul, Albert Deß, Valdis Dombrovskis, Hanna Foltyn-Kubicka, Maciej Marian Giertych, Béla Glattfelder, Bogdan Golik, Genowefa Grabowska, Dariusz Maciej Grabowski, Małgorzata Handzlik, Mieczysław Edmund Janowski, Michał Tomasz Kamiński, Sergej Kozlík, Ģirts Valdis Kristovskis, Urszula Krupa, Wiesław Stefan Kuc, Zbigniew Krzysztof Kuźmiuk, Bogusław Liberadzki, Marcin Libicki, Astrid Lulling, Jan Tadeusz Masiel, Cristiana Muscardini, Seán Ó Neachtain, Péter Olajos, Neil Parish, Bogdan Pęk, Józef Pinior, Mirosław Mariusz Piotrowski, Umberto Pirilli, Paweł Bartłomiej Piskorski, Zita Pleštinská, Jacek Protasiewicz, Bogusław Rogalski, Dariusz Rosati, Wojciech Roszkowski, Leopold Józef Rutowicz, Eoin Ryan, Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, Andreas Schwab, Czesław Adam Siekierski, Francesco Enrico Speroni, Grażyna Staniszewska, Andrzej Jan Szejna, Konrad Szymański, Csaba Sándor Tabajdi, Salvatore Tatarella, Witold Tomczak, Bernard Wojciechowski, Janusz Wojciechowski, Andrzej Tomasz Zapałowski and Roberts Zīle on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (O-0026/2007 - B6-0126/2007).

  Zdzisław Zbigniew Podkański (UEN), author. – (PL) Mr President, one of the main problems faced by Europe and the world today is that of environmental disaster. Between 1990 and 2006 alone, Europe experienced 31 droughts, 102 earthquakes, 344 floods, 58 forest fires and 170 hurricanes. These disasters caused huge material and human losses. They also resulted in the need to provide aid to the victims.

This year has brought more destructive frosts and spring ground frosts, which have resulted in damage to garden and fruit crops, mainly in central, eastern and northern Europe. For example, the frosts in some regions of Poland produced temperatures of between -7 to -12 degrees Celsius. According to the estimates of the Institute of Fruit Farming and Floriculture in Skierniewice, the harvest will be smaller this year in comparison to the previous year as a result of the frosts. This difference will amount to 60-70% in the case of apples, 80% for pears, 90% for plums, around 40-50% for morello cherries and 50% for blackcurrants. The cherry, peach, apricot and walnut crops will have been almost entirely destroyed. The process of estimating losses is currently taking place throughout Poland. According to the Fruit Farmers’ Association, these losses will amount to a few billion zlotys.

Tens of thousands of farmers’ families have lost their entire annual income and, as a result, their livelihood and chance to start production again next year. Several thousand owners of fruit and vegetable processing companies are waiting for aid. We have to help these people, no matter where they live and where their businesses are based. The national governments and the European Commission need to show solidarity in terms of providing aid.

We need to use funds from the European Union’s Solidarity Fund, which was set up by the Council regulation of 11 November 2002. If the Fund's criteria are not met, then other possible funding needs to be found. The new Member States particularly need this aid, in view of the fact that, unlike the older Member States, they do not receive full agricultural subsidies from the European Union budget and, to a significant extent, fund the common agricultural policy from their own budgets.

I would like to take advantage of this opportunity in order to warmly thank you for your support for our efforts to ensure that the new Member States receive additional funding and I would like to ask you to remember those who have been most affected ...

(The President cut off the speaker)

  Charlie McCreevy, Member of the Commission. Mr President, I would like to express my thanks for this question and to inform Members that the Commission is well aware of the situation.

Frost struck fruit producers not only in Poland, but in Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia as well. The Commission will monitor developments in the sector.

The current common market organisation in fresh fruit and vegetables does not foresee any direct assistance to producers adversely affected by climatic conditions or natural disasters. The CMO provides EU assistance to producer organisations and producer groups in relation to their operational programmes and in recognition of the plans that, to some extent, can cover losses.

In the proposal for the reform of the common market organisation, the Commission proposed to widen the scope of the crisis management tools and to enable the producer organisations to get EU co-financing to cover costs of harvest insurance and, later, to establish mutual funds.

As regards the possibility of granting state aid, Member States may, under certain conditions, use the provisions of Regulation (EC) No 1857/2006 to exempt from notification an aid scheme earmarked for the compensation of losses due to frost. In case the envisaged aid scheme does not fully comply with the provisions of the Regulation, Member States may still notify it under the Community guidelines for state aid in the agriculture and forestry sector, 2007-2013.

I would also like to add that Member States may also use the de minimis mechanism. In that case, the aid would be limited to EUR 3 000 per beneficiary in three years, within the framework of the maximum amount laid down for each Member State in the annex to the Regulation.

Under the rural development legislation, Member States have two possibilities to support producers who suffer from the consequences of natural disasters. Firstly, Member States may implement specific measures to restore agricultural production potential damaged by natural disasters, and they may also introduce appropriate preventive actions. However, the present draft proposal of the Polish rural development programme for the period 2007-2013 does not foresee the inclusion of this measure in the programme. The Commission is open to discussing this possibility with the Polish authorities, should they wish to do so.

Another possibility of rural development support is provided under the force majeure rule of the rural development policy. In case a natural disaster seriously affects the land and the holding, and the farmer cannot respect the relevant commitments he has made under a rural development scheme, Member States may recognise a case of force majeure. This means the farmers who benefit from rural development support will not have to pay back the aid received.

One of the most relevant measures under force majeure is agri-environment. If, during a specific year, the beneficiary cannot respect the commitments due to a natural disaster, he will not be paid or partially not be paid in that year. However, he does not have to reimburse the payments he has received during the rest of the period of the contract. The Member State is invited to discuss the different aspects of this case with the Commission services.

As regards the application of force majeure, it is important that the beneficiary notifies the case in writing to the competent authority, together with relevant evidence, within 10 working days from the day on which the beneficiary is in a position to do so.

  Czesław Adam Siekierski, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group. – (PL) Mr President, nearly every year various regions of Europe experience various kinds of natural disaster. We hear of droughts, flooding caused by torrential rainfall or strong winds. This year, we were unfortunately not spared from the effects of frost. The frosts that affected the northern and eastern parts of Central Europe between April and May, when the ground temperature fell as low as -10 degrees Celsius, caused a great deal of devastation to the farming sector.

The crops that suffered included early vegetables, apple and pear trees, sweet and morello cherries, plums and soft fruit. In some regions of Poland the losses have been so great that the financial position of many farms will seriously deteriorate. Until now, Polish farmers and orchard owners only rarely sought to protect their crops from frost as this is a very expensive endeavour and they often simply could not afford it.

However, the wave of cold weather did not only affect my country. Orchard owners and farmers also suffered, albeit to a lesser extent, in Germany, Holland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, and even in northern Romania.

Commissioner, we need consistent actions which aim not only to provide financial aid to affected orchard owners, farmers and producers but, above all, to find solutions which would counteract or alleviate the effects of natural disasters, which are occurring more frequently due to climate change.

  Luis Manuel Capoulas Santos, on behalf of the PSE Group. – (PT) Mr President, unlike many economic activities, farming is, of course, done in the open air, which frequently places farmers at the mercy of climate-related disasters beyond their control.

Farmers who fall victim to such disasters must not be dependent on charity, be it at national or European level. They must be granted rights, so that there is a level playing field when it comes to such situations on European territory. This was my approach when, as rapporteur for the draft resolution on the agricultural element of natural disasters, which was adopted one year ago, one of the proposals I put forward was to set up a European insurance system with triple funding – farmers, Member States and the EU – to deal with precisely this type of situation.

Accordingly, in addition to supporting the call for solidarity with the farmers affected, I should like to ask the Commission if it intends to give tangible form to the proposal adopted by a resounding majority a year ago here in this Chamber. The proposal was designed to introduce this system of insurance and would not entail any increase in the Community budget. If it does intend to do so, when will it put forward a proposal to that end?

  Ilda Figueiredo, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group. – (PT) Mr President, natural disasters happen again and again, and the time has come for the Commission to respond promptly to such situations. I should firstly like to declare our solidarity with all the Polish farmers affected by the recent frosts that destroyed most of this year’s fruit and vegetable crops. We would urge that they be given all the necessary support.

The Commission must also show solidarity in its response. We must also mention the hail and serious storms experienced in May in Portugal, which did serious damage to farms in the areas of Murça, Sobral de Monte Agraço, Azambuja, Torres Vedras, Alenquer, Alvito, Vidigueira and Cuba. We express our solidarity with the farmers concerned, and call for the support they need to be provided.

These situations demonstrate that farmers are in the front line when it comes to the effects of climate change. It is therefore essential to pursue public policies whereby the farmers are guaranteed an income, even during times of crisis and when crops are destroyed due to climate-related problems, be they frost or hail, floods or drought.

The time has come to set up a Community-funded public insurance scheme. It is also important, however, to guarantee protection of the markets for agricultural products and to promote a new agricultural policy that forms part of local and regional development policies that bring together various sectoral policies and give them cohesion and coherence.

What is needed is a new strategy for agriculture, one that takes account of natural advantages, one that incorporates the need for growth in productivity and production levels, one in which the climatic characteristics of each region are taken account of in productive systems, one that is aimed at improving food quality, one that is committed to increasing the income and living standards of farmers, thus securing the future for young farmers and one that guarantees the food sovereignty to which every country is entitled.

  Béla Glattfelder (PPE-DE). – (HU) Farmers have suffered terrible losses not just in Poland, but in Hungary too. Many farmers have had their crops totally destroyed.

What is clear from what the gentleman has said is that the common agricultural policy currently offers farmers fairly limited prospects. It goes without saying that current legal regulations, first and foremost, make Member States responsible for providing assistance to those farmers in dire straits. This, it would seem, is the issue which has primarily to be resolved in Warsaw and Budapest. However, we need to change this in the future. The common agricultural policy has the chance to do some good here. In other words, we cannot regard natural disasters as a calculable risk concomitant with the operation of the market and agricultural production.

The European Union must show solidarity with farmers. We must endeavour to create in the future at, European level, an institution for providing mutual assistance, which we also need because, if the resolution of these issues basically continues to remain under the Member States' jurisdiction in the future, this will create disparities, where the various Member States may each respond to these issues in a different way. Farmers in some countries will receive assistance, while farmers in other countries will not, which means that the requirement for equal conditions of competition will not be met.

For this reason, I am asking the European Commission to table this proposal as soon as possible, which will help create a European institution for providing mutual assistance.

  Zita Pleštinská (PPE-DE). – (SK) The frosts that hit Polish fruit and vegetable growers at the end of April and in early May have probably destroyed about 90% of their annual yields. Nor have the whims of the weather spared growers of such crops in Slovakia. According to reports, 80-100% of orchard blossoms have been destroyed by frosts, depending on location and crop variety. I am living in a region close to the Slovak-Polish border, and I can observe that climate disasters in remote areas may have implications not only for farmers but, indirectly, increase unemployment and lead to even greater regional disparities.

The very survival of the fruit growers will be jeopardised unless the EU gives them a hand. Therefore, the EU should introduce a damage alleviation mechanism designed to compensate losses that are due to natural disasters; also, the EU should not forget about business contacts built up over long periods of time. A solution might be found in enabling domestic growers to sell imported fruit directly to their long-term customers. This would imply targeted short-term EU aid and would enable fruit growers to remain competitive in the future.

The underlying principles of the European Union include solidarity; therefore, I urge the European Commission to take concrete measures and demonstrate solidarity with the fruit growers whose harvest has been destroyed by frost.

  Charlie McCreevy, Member of the Commission. Mr President, I should just like to make one point. Following the point raised by Mr Podkański, I should clarify that the Solidarity Fund does not pay out for income losses of individual farmers.

I should like to thank Members for their contributions to the debate, and I will inform my colleague Mariann Fischer Boel about the concerns which have been raised.

  President. I should like to thank you, Commissioner, and your team for having stayed so late.

  President. The debate is closed.