14 Amendments of Inés AYALA SENDER related to 2014/2147(INI)
Amendment 1 #
Draft opinion
Recital A
Recital A
A. whereas the 2007 reform aimed to strengthen the fruit and vegetable producer organisations (POs) by providing a wider range of tools to enable them to prevent and manage market risks, as well as enhancing and concentrating supply, improving quality and competitiveness, adapting supply to match the market, providing technical support for environmentally friendly production, etc.;
Amendment 4 #
Draft opinion
Recital A a (new)
Recital A a (new)
Aa. whereas the EU is the world’s second- largest producer, and also the second largest importer of fruit and vegetables, and whereas demand in this sector is growing and currently exceeds supply; whereas its turnover is estimated at more than EUR 120 000 billion and it acts as an economic multiplier at European level, stimulating both demand and the creation of added value in other economic sectors such as trade, construction and financial services; whereas this sector nevertheless receives only around 3% of CAP aid, even though it accounts for 18% of the total value of agricultural production in the EU;
Amendment 5 #
Ab. whereas the horticulture sector employs around 550 000 people and is of vital importance for the economy of producer regions with a high unemployment rate;
Amendment 6 #
Draft opinion
Recital D
Recital D
D. whereas those funds are financed by contributions from the PO’s members or the PO itself and by EU financial assistance, and this co-financing fosters commitment on the part of beneficiaries and helps ensure that beneficiaries make good use of the assistance, as well as having a multiplier effect;
Amendment 8 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 a (new)
Paragraph 1 a (new)
1a. Points out that the outcome of the public consultation was clearly in favour of the continuation of the regime, the overall conclusion was that the objectives of the EU regime for the fruit and vegetable sector were by and large being achieved, and the system was still proving useful; points out, likewise, that the alternative system of assistance proposed by the Commission received virtually no support and the vast majority was in favour of maintaining the status quo;
Amendment 11 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 a (new)
Paragraph 4 a (new)
4a. Points to the need to improve the organisation rate in the sector, bearing in mind that the organisation rate is clearly higher in regions where production and marketing are more modernised and geared to export, while it is weakest in countries that have not had an opportunity to use operational funds for many years;
Amendment 13 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 b (new)
Paragraph 4 b (new)
4b. Points out that the conditions for applying for the assistance regime and justifying applications are excessive and imprecise, and are subject to multiple checks by a range of administrative bodies that are often neither consistent nor precise, leading certain types of partners to abandon the regime and certain POs to decide not to submit operational programmes; considers it vital in this context to clarify European legislation on the recognition of POs in order to guarantee the legal security of the regime and prevent uncertainty among producers;
Amendment 14 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. FearStresses that the objective of reaching an average rate of 60 % by 2013 set in the 2007 reform is out of reach, and notes that there was nowas excessive and arbitrary, since it took no account of a range of significant facceleration of the increase in the organisation rate after the 2007 reformtors such as the entry of Eastern European countries, for example, and the need to adapt the features of the system to those countries;
Amendment 16 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Is concerned that the largest POs (about 18 % of all POs with a turnover of more than EUR 20 million) receive about 70 % of the EU financial assistance; points out, likewise, that those who receive most also invest most from their own funds; stresses that large POs are made up of micro- enterprises and, consequently, such POs represent thousands of small producers, and points out that large POs are generally most efficient in carrying out certain activities and help to improve the situation for the sector as a whole in key areas such as varietal innovation, market opening, product withdrawal, price setting, promoting products and protecting the environment;
Amendment 17 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. Is worried that, according to thin some 2012 evaluation reports sent by BE, CY, CZ, DK, DE, ES, FR, HU, IT, NL, AT, PT and UK, operational programmes appear to be contributing little or nothing to the following objectives: optimising production costs, stabilising producer prices and improving the attractiveness of POs, and that little or no contribution is being made to some environmental obj; stresses, however, that this regime has pioneered ‘eco-conditionality’, since it is a compulsory condition for recteives such as landscape preservation, climate change mitigation, preserving air quality and reducing waste productioning aid from the OF that 10% of the aid must be earmarked for easily quantifiable environmental measures;
Amendment 21 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
8. Deplores the following weaknesses identified in the setting-up of some national strategies: too large a number of objectives, lack of precise predefined targets for the different objectives, and very low use of crisis prevention and management instruments in connection mainly with harvest insurance, promotion and communication and product withdrawalin particular the very low operational effectiveness of crisis prevention and management instruments, which can cope only with individual market crises and are insufficient to manage large-scale crises such as the current crisis caused by the Russian embargo;
Amendment 23 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 9
Paragraph 9
9. Views as regrettable the lack ofSees a need to establish preventive measures to help POs to understand and correctly calculate and use predefined performance indicators, and the lack of checks by national administrations on the data recorded bystresses that in many cases there is an excessive number of performance indicators, which makes the procedure extremely difficult for both POs inand their annual reports, particularly regarding performance administration, and in this context it would be much more useful to have fewer but more significant indicators;
Amendment 24 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 11
Paragraph 11
11. Stresses that the Director-General of DG AGRI established in its 2013 annual activity report a reservation as regards granting recognition to producer groups in Austria, the Netherlands, Poland and the UK. It is estimated that up to 25% of total expenditure might be at risk; considers it vital in this connection to verify whether the possible disqualification of a PO is due to improper recognition on the part of the national authorities, which should lead to those authorities being declassified on the grounds that they are failing to comply with the regime’s objectives, or whether it is due to a lack of clarity in the rules, in which case the rules should be clarified;
Amendment 25 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 12
Paragraph 12
12. Points out that the Russian embargo and the programme for emergency market measures for perishable fruit and vegetables adopted by the Commission in August and September 2014 confirm that an improvement in the crisis prevention and management instruments is absolutely necessary; takes the view, in this context, that a further tool is needed alongside POs, with an independent budget, since the scant resources available to the operational funds earmarked for structural measures are not sufficient to deal with this type of crisis;