Interventi in aula

mplifying the local voices:

Good afternoon everybody and thanks a lot to Barbara (Schretter), the Representation of Bavaria and all the Coalition of EU Agriregions for hosting this important and timely seminar on the crucial role we want to safeguard for regions in the next CAP.

As you know, these weeks are crucial due to the ongoing discussions both in the Parliament and in the Council, in order to find the respective position in view of the inter-institutional negotiations, which will start right after the summer break and, I expect, last until the first half of 2021.

As mentioned already by Simone (Schmiedtbauer), the AGRI Committee of the European Parliament voted our position last April, aiming at safeguarding the involvement of rural actors and local authorities in the policy-making process, by re-introducing the direct link between regions and the European Union, which was deleted by the New Delivery Model as proposed by the Commission. 

We are firmly convinced of the importance of a certain degree of flexibility to be granted to our Regions through de-centralised management in order to respond to local needs: but we need your help as we fear that the other co-legislator is not of the same opinion and might oppose this position!

Let me conclude with a reference on the proposal made by President Michel on the next MFF: a proposal which I consider not only unacceptable, but also offensive toward the Parliament and our farmers. The EU Council, by further cutting the rural development budget of 5 billion compared to the proposal of the Finnish Presidency, is probably forgetting that no environmental sustainability can exist, without the social and economic sustainability of the sector.  

The Presidents of our three Political Groups have already sent a letter to President Michel highlighting the European Parliament position to maintain the current levels of funding for agriculture in real terms.

I can reassure you that we will continue to fight for this objective and will never accept a bad agreement on the MFF due to time pressure!

Thanks again for the invitation and I look forward to a fruitful discussion today!