Check against delivery Swedish Presidency of the European Union Speech by Mr Eskil Erlandsson at the meeting of the European Parliamentary Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, 1 September 2009 I am very pleased to be with you here today and to present the Swedish presidency s priorities regarding agriculture and fisheries. It is particularly exciting for us to be embarking on the EU presidency with a newly-elected European Parliament! I am naturally curious to learn what message you wish to pass on to me in my capacity as Council chair. I myself have spent many years as an MP in our own Swedish parliament, and I know what it is like to stand in the starting blocks at the beginning of a new term! So I see our exchange of thoughts and ideas here today as a kind of powerful vitamin injection that will help make this a successful autumn! As members of this committee, you have many different areas of responbility, and in my government I am responsible for some of them. This is also the committee that the greatest number of ministers from my government will be visiting for these hearings. I know you met my colleague Andreas Carlgren this morning, and tomorrow, as you know, two more colleagues will be
coming: Göran Hägglund, Minister for Health and Social Affairs, and Maria Larsson, Minister for Elderly Care and Public Health. 2 The Swedish presidency has three main priorities in my area of responsibility. All are based on the fundamental principle of using natural resources without abusing them. The three priorities are: Long-term sustainable fisheries Food and climate the global challenges, and Sound animal husbandry and healthy animals. Some of these priorities affect your committee more than others. I would like to begin with the climate. Solving the problem of climate change is the greatest challenge of today. And it is an issue that will engage the attention of all Europe and indeed the whole world more than ever this autumn. Agriculture is a key actor in the fight against climate change, but we must also adjust to those changes we face, such as changed water conditions and new animal and plant diseases. Agriculture is a part of the problem but it is also a part of the solution, not least in the push for sustainable energy production. At the first meeting of the Agriculture and Fisheries Council under the Swedish presidency, in July, the ministers had a highly rewarding discussion on agriculture s adaptation to climate change. That discussion will continue and be intensified at the informal ministerial meeting to be held in Växjö, where the theme will in fact be agriculture and climate. That meeting will
3 also focus on ways and means of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases from European agriculture. In the climate sphere, we will be organising two further conferences in Sweden during the autumn. One will be entitled Climate-Smart Food and will discuss what food producers and consumers can do to reduce climate impact. The other is a research-oriented conference on how Europe s rural areas can help society adjust to new climate conditions. This meeting will focus in particular on the development of sustainable bioenergy production. I would also like to mention a conference on agriculture and water, scheduled for the end of this month. Water management is a highly topical issue in many member states, from both a qualitative and a quantative viewpoint. We are hoping the conference will provide a forum for interesting discussions on this subject. An important issue in my area is the proposal to strengthen the Action Plan on Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade, or FLEGT as we call it. This issue, too, is related to the climate. Sustainable forestry is essential if we are to stop deforestation around the world, and also if we want to make proper use of forests as a way of reducing climate change. Last October, the Commission presented its proposals for laying down the obligations of operators who place timber and timber products on the market. Both the Council and the
4 Parliament have spent a great deal of time on this matter. You adopted a report on this in the spring and proposed a number of changes, and these will of course need to be analysed. The aim of the previous presidency was to reach a political agreement on the matter in June, but the proposal took time to process in the Council and this deadline was not met. The plan now is to carry this work forward with a view to achieving political agreement in the Council towards the end of the autumn. The third priority I mentioned earlier was Sound animal husbandry and healthy animals. I am convinced that sound animal husbandry is crucial to animal welfare and also to public health and consumer confidence in food production. A conference in October will be devoted to this issue, and I hope representatives of the European Parliament will take an active part in the event. I will also be organising a lunchtime discussion on the theme of sound animal husbandry and healthy animals at one of the Council meetings this autumn. There are a number of proposals on the table relating to animal welfare. One of these is the Commission s proposals for revising legislation on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes. We also intend to work with issues arising from the Commission s communication on the Community Action Plan on the Protection and Welfare of Animals.
5 On the animal health front, the presidency is strongly committed to following up the Commission s communication on the EU Animal Health Policy. Here, we are pressing ahead in the Council so as to provide input for the Commission s continuing work on the legislative proposals that are expected in 2010. The animal health and welfare policy needs to be updated and adapted in response both to modern forms of animal husbandry and to new threats to animal health and public health. There is also a major need to simplify legislation in this area as well, so that it is easier to complywith and so that entrepreneurs are not faced with an unnecessary administrative burden. From animal health I would like to move on to food issues. This is an area that affects the daily lives of all of us above all, perhaps, as consumers. We want to be sure that the food we eat ourselves, or give to our children, is not only tasty and nutritious but also safe and sound. Legislation in the food sector is of course important to the European food industry as well. Here, I would like to mention two proposals the Regulation on novel foods and the Regulation on the provision of food information to consumers, or the food labelling proposal, as we also call it. The Common position on novel foods will be adopted by the Council in a couple of weeks time. We can then begin the second reading in preparation for an agreement. This is an ambitious target, but I am firmly convinced that we can achieve it. The Swedish presidency is ready to cooperate closely with the rapporteur, with shadow rapporteurs and with this committee in seeking a compromise that is acceptable to all. I feel we should
6 do all we can to seize this opportunity to create a modern legislation that reflects the latest developments and which pave the way for innovations in our food industry. The second proposal the labelling proposal has rightly attracted a great deal of attention. It is important to strike a balance, so that consumers can make conscious choices without placing an unreasonably heavy administrative burden on producers. You are working intensively with this proposal, and so are we. But since it contains so many different aspects, and there are differing opinions, a first reading agreement seems difficult to achieve during the autumn. The presidency s aim, however, is to bring the Council members together on this issue before the end of the year. Finally, I would just like to mention what is happening with regard to the legislative proposals in the pesticides package. Following intensive negotiations betwen the three institutions, a compromise was finally achieved on each of the three legal instruments. There was no final conclusion for the last part of the package the one concerning statistics. The presidency is striving to find a simple and acceptable solution so that we can confirm this agreement from the second reading. This, my friends, was an account of what we are hoping to achieve during the Swedish presidency. Now I am curious to know what questions you have and what messages you would like to send away with me as the Council chair this autumn!
Thank you very much! 7