19 Amendments of Mairead McGUINNESS related to 2009/2237(INI)
Amendment 6 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 a (new)
Paragraph 3 a (new)
3a. Urges the Commission to examine the consequences in all Member States of significant market penetration by a single retail entity; urges the Commission to consider placing an appropriate upper limit on market penetration;
Amendment 7 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D
Recital D
D. whereas the share of agricultural value added from the food supply chain has dropped from 31% in 1995 to 24% in 2005 in the EU-25, and whereas preliminary figures for the following years show a further decrease of the share returning to farmers, against a constant increase of profitmargins by processors, whole sale traders and/or retailers,
Amendment 11 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5 a (new)
Paragraph 5 a (new)
5a. Notes the emergence in some Member States of voluntary codes of practice and /or the establishment of an Ombudsman for the food retail sector; urges the Commission to examine the experiences of the Member States in this regard with a view to the establishment of a European- wide code of practice and food retail Ombudsman;
Amendment 12 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital F
Recital F
F. whereas the food supply chain involves farmers, 'farmers'’ co-operatives and producer organisations, food processing industries, wholesalers, retailers, catering, restaurants, direct supply from subsistence and, private production and consumers; whereas this complexity and high diversity must be taken into account in order to improve the sustainability of the whole chain,
Amendment 26 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital H a (new)
Recital H a (new)
Ha. whereas the Commission states that contractual imbalances associated with unequal bargaining power have a negative impact on the competitiveness of the food supply chain as smaller but efficient actors may be obliged to operate under reduced profitability, limiting their ability and incentives to invest in improved product quality and innovation of production processes,
Amendment 27 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital H a (new)
Recital H a (new)
Ha. whereas food products are traded freely in the internal market and the outcome of price negotiations between producers (organisations), processors, traders and retailers are often determined by price developments in the world market,
Amendment 46 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Notes that the recently created European food price monitoring tool is very complex and is a long way from meeting consumers" and farmers" need for more transparency on food price building at a macro level; stresses however that transparency at transaction level would be contraproductive as that would only serve to help buyers source products from the cheapest source;
Amendment 50 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2 a (new)
Paragraph 2 a (new)
2a. Deplores the reluctance of the European Commission to carry out a study of the distribution of profit margins throughout the supply chains as agreed with regard to the 2009 budget procedure;
Amendment 51 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2 a (new)
Paragraph 2 a (new)
2a. Points out that an imbalance in business transparency between agricultural undertakings and up- and downstream actors in the food chain may have negative consequences for farmers’ and producer groups’ negotiating position;
Amendment 55 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Calls on the Commission to swiftly carry out the pilot project on the creation of a European farm prices and margins observatory, for which Parliament and Council adopted a EUR 1.5 million appropriation under the 2010 budget, and to include a comparison of sustainable production costs and farm gate prices in key farming sectors of different territoriMember States and social- economic situations;
Amendment 70 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4 a (new)
Paragraph 4 a (new)
4a. Notes that the distribution of margins in the food chain is unequal; calls on the Commission to adapt the price transparency of agricultural enterprises to that of other actors in the food chain;
Amendment 83 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Calls on national and European competition authorities to robustly address the dominant position and significant market share of agribusiness traders, processors and retailers operating in the food supply chain; urges these competition authorities to take action against abusive buyer practices of dominant wholesalers and retailers which systematically put farmers in an extremely unequal bargaining position;
Amendment 89 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5 a (new)
Paragraph 5 a (new)
5a. Urges the Commission to examine the consequences of significant market penetration by a single retailer or a small number of retailers in a given Member State; urges the Commission to consider the possibility of introducing corrective measures - for the benefit of producers and consumers - where retailer practice or market share is found to have an anti- competitive effect;
Amendment 90 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5 b (new)
Paragraph 5 b (new)
5b. Notes the emergence in some Member States of voluntary codes of practice and /or the establishment of Ombudsman for the food retail sector; urges the European Commission to examine the experiences of the Member States in this regard with a view to the establishment of a European- wide food retail Ombudsman;
Amendment 94 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6 a (new)
Paragraph 6 a (new)
6a. Urges the Commission to initiate a full sector inquiry along the food supply chain to determine the level of buyer power abuses in the sector; points to the success of the competition inquiry within the pharmaceutical sector in 2009;
Amendment 108 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7 a (new)
Paragraph 7 a (new)
7a. Calls on the Commission to widen the scope of the Regulation 1234/2007 on the Common Market Organisation (CMO) in order to include sustainable production practices as a condition for exemption in accordance with the specific conditions details in article 101 of the Treaty when entering into collective arrangements with other food chain stakeholders that would spread the costs of the introduction of sustainable production practices;
Amendment 128 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8 a (new)
Paragraph 8 a (new)
8a. Urges the Commission to expand the mandate of European competition law beyond its current narrow focus on consumer welfare and concerns for low food prices;
Amendment 134 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9
Paragraph 9
9. Calls on the Commission to take actionintroduce contracting standards against the misuse of private labels through the imposition of contracting standards whichby retailers (vis-à-vis branded products) which results in limiting farmers" market access and, their visibility to consumers and leads to the systematic reduction of producer prices, and againsturges the Commission to take action with regard to the practices of buying alliances by supermarket chains;
Amendment 171 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15
Paragraph 15
15. Urges the Council to further encourage self-regulation initiatives so as to strengthen farmers" bargaining positions, especially through support to producer organisations and farmers’ co-operatives;