What Norbert spoke about.

28

Apr

2026

DE Speech

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Interim report on the proposal for the multiannual financial framework for 2028-2034 (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! As rapporteur for the common agricultural policy, I would like to thank the co-rapporteurs for including the calls from the Committee on Agriculture for a budget of 433 billion for the next EU budget. For farmers in Europe, it is about planning security. A strong EU budget is a clear foundation for sustainable agriculture in the European Union, and…

15

Dec

2025

DE Speech

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Amending certain CAP Regulations as regards the conditionality system, types of intervention in the form of direct payment, types of intervention in certain sectors and rural development and annual performance reports, data and interoperability governance, suspensions of payments annual performance clearance and controls and penalties (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner! Dear colleagues! With the agreement on the CAP simplification package, we are sending a strong signal to our farmers across Europe. We understood that the rules of the common agricultural policy were too rigid, too fragmented and too unworkable. And we act. With tomorrow's vote, we will ensure that the simplifications arrive quickly and unbureaucratically at the farm…

7

Oct

2025

DE Speech

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Common agricultural policy (joint debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! One I like, the other I'm not quite convinced yet. What are we talking about? On the one hand, the reform of the common organisation of the market and, on the other hand, the simplification package relating to the common agricultural policy of our European Union. I really have concerns about the reform of the common organisation of the market. I be…

10

Jul

2025

DE Speech

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Post-2027 Common Agricultural Policy (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! The common agricultural policy must continue to have an independent, reliable and at least inflation-adjusted budget after 2027. We also need an independent law at the European level. We are in charge of the common agricultural policy. It is about planning security for the farmers also in view of the geopolitical global uncertainties, the volati…

13

Mar

2025

DE Speech

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A Vision for Agriculture and Food (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen. It was finally understood that our European farmers are a central pillar in the EU and that we therefore have to work with them and not against them. The Commission's proposal with this vision sends an important signal to agriculture and rural areas in Europe that the message has really arrived in Brussels and that we now have the opportunity to wo…

16

Sep

2024

DE Answer

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Outcome of the Strategic Dialogue on the Future of EU Agriculture (debate)

So, if I understood the question correctly, it was about international trade and the role of agriculture in it. I believe that our ambition must be to include sustainability in future trade agreements. So that standards that are self-evident to us, which we have given ourselves, then also apply to imports from other parts of the world. I believe this is our most important point that we need to enf…

16

Sep

2024

DE Speech

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Outcome of the Strategic Dialogue on the Future of EU Agriculture (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! I believe we see it was a good idea to launch this strategic dialogue, following the polarisation of the agricultural debate by former Vice-President Frans Timmermans, who was responsible for the biggest loss of confidence of farmers in the European Commission in its entire history. Farmers are back at the table, and I believe this paper, this resu…

24

Apr

2024

DE Speech

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The attack on climate and nature: far right and conservative attempts to destroy the Green Deal and prevent investment in our future (topical debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! The other day, the German Minister of Agriculture went from the Greens to the inventors. He invented the bamboo bee. What happened? He stood on his balcony, trimmed his bamboo and claimed that he now lays the feed base for the bees. That can happen. Everyone knows that a bamboo is a useless crop for the bees, but stupidly, it symbolizes your conser…

22

Apr

2024

EN Speech

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Order of business

Madam President, last plenary session, Parliament endorsed an urgent procedure to be applied for the simplification of certain CAP rules. The vote is for now scheduled on Thursday this week and Parliament waits for the EEC to adopt its opinion on Wednesday. Following the consultation of the EEC agenda, it should be easily feasible that Parliament receives the EEC opinion on the simplification of c…

28

Feb

2024

DE Speech

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Need for an urgent Council decision in favour of amending the protection status of wolves in the Bern Convention (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! I am very grateful to the President of the Commission for proposing to the Commission to reduce the protection status of the wolf from ‘strictly protected’ to ‘protected’, first under the Berne Convention and then, of course, in the Habitats Directive. It is about the protection of grazing animal owners. But, of course, it is above all about the…

7

Feb

2024

DE Answer

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Empowering farmers and rural communities - a dialogue towards sustainable and fairly rewarded EU agriculture (debate)

I have great sympathy for the fact that we are implementing European regulations – what we are adopting here – in the Member States one-to-one. And indeed, it is sometimes the case that national and, in some cases, regional governments go beyond the provisions of Brussels. But where we also have our own responsibilities, for example when it comes to decommissioning, we need to tackle the 4% now an…

7

Feb

2024

DE Speech

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Empowering farmers and rural communities - a dialogue towards sustainable and fairly rewarded EU agriculture (debate)

Mr President, Mr Vice-President! It is good that farmers in Europe take to the streets, that they do not continue this policy. It is often up to national governments to make the wrong decisions – for example, my own, which does not even understand the term ‘rural area’, which makes pure politics for the big cities. But it is also up to us, among other things; It's the Timmermans agenda, the ideolo…

17

Jan

2024

DE Speech

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Improving the socio-economic situation of farmers and rural areas, ensuring fair incomes, food security as well as a just transition (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! Brussels cannot support the fact that Germany has a low performer as Minister of Agriculture, who, when decisions are made, obviously sits at the cat table and not at the cabinet table. But that does not mean that we are complacent and that we have done everything right in recent years. But I think we've been sending good signals in the last few…

21

Nov

2023

DE Speech

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Proposals of the European Parliament for the amendment of the Treaties (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! Many amendments to the Treaties are necessary in many areas. This does not apply to agriculture. I believe, like the majority of my committee, that the objectives of the common agricultural policy remain appropriate and important, as we have seen during the ongoing war in Ukraine, the COVID pandemic and also climate change and its impact on the foo…

21

Nov

2023

DE Answer

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Sustainable use of plant protection products (debate)

Dear colleague Wiener! This is exactly what it is all about: This is a reversal of the burden of proof. It is about: First, it must be clear: Are any animal species or plant species endangered by a certain active substance, by a certain plant protection product in particular and not prohibited as a general rule? And I repeat again: Exceptions, which are then to be decided by the Member States, pol…

21

Nov

2023

DE Speech

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Sustainable use of plant protection products (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! In the coronavirus pandemic, in the Russian attack on Ukraine, we have become aware of the importance of good self-sufficiency of high-quality food in the European Union. And this is exactly what, in addition to the issue of climate and biodiversity protection, must guide us in our vote tomorrow. I believe that the proposals of the Committee on …

19

Oct

2023

DE Speech

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Generational renewal in the EU farms of the future (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! A job in industry or handicrafts that is financially more interesting in the immediate vicinity of your own farm, more wages, and all this with fewer working hours: Sounds appealing – it is. Lots of work, little pay, dwindling social prestige, bureaucratic requirements that put more and more stones in your way: It doesn’t sound very appealing – nor…

4

Oct

2023

DE Speech

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The proposed extension of glyphosate in the EU (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! Mr Biteau and the German Minister for Agriculture have just shown that they have not understood the precautionary principle at all. The precautionary principle with regard to the authorisation of plant protection products is the hardest thing the European Union has in the world, and that means that we have confidence in the toughest authorisation p…

13

Sep

2023

DE Speech

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Reviewing the protection status of wolves and other large carnivores in the EU (topical debate)

Mr President! Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! For more than 30 years, we have not changed anything about the protection status of the wolf. In a quarter of this time, we expect the laws of Green DealsTransforming Europe's entire environment and biodiversity by 2030. The Habitats Directive was adopted in 1992. At the time, wolves were practically extinct in my homeland. Today, more than 1,500 a…

12

Sep

2023

DE Speech

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Ambient air quality and cleaner air for Europe (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! In recent months, we have been negotiating intensively on this Parliament mandate for the revision of the Ambient Air Quality Directive. I believe that the report of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection still needs to be significantly improved. That is why, together with colleagues from other political groups, …

11

Jul

2023

DE Speech

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Nature restoration (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner! I brought good news from my home country. We recently had a monitoring in my intensive fruit growing area on Lake Constance in the south of Germany. We have 112 wild bee species in 2023, twice as many as in 2010, of which 26 species were considered threatened or significantly reduced nationwide. What a success! And who did it, who got it? Farmers, especially fruit fa…

10

May

2023

DE Speech

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Ukrainian cereals on the European market (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, Minister! It is good, Commissioner, that you are here now; We would also like to welcome you to the agricultural debate this morning. It is undisputed that the war in Ukraine presents us with great challenges. The prices of grain in the Ukrainian border states are on the decline, the situation is precarious, the farmers are urgently dependent on financial aid. Only: …

10

May

2023

DE Speech

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The role of farmers as enablers of the green transition and a resilient agricultural sector (continuation of debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, Minister, ladies and gentlemen! I am glad, Commissioner, that you are here. But I wonder where the Commissioner for Agriculture is, why he is not taking up this debate, where he is hiding this morning; That's the question. I believe that it is a matter of respect for this House that the Commissioner for Agriculture should take up this debate. Next week, on 15 May, farme…

16

Mar

2023

DE Speech

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European Citizens’ Initiative "Save bees and farmers! Towards a bee-friendly agriculture for a healthy environment" (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! Bees are an essential part of our ecosystem: Without them there is no harvest and no food. But I also say: Farmers are an essential part of our ecosystem, because without them there is no harvest and no food. It is therefore all the more important that we develop practical and feasible solutions together with them, i.e. the farmers. We must work…

13

Mar

2023

DE Speech

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Binding annual greenhouse gas emission reductions by Member States (Effort Sharing Regulation) - Land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) - Revision of the Market Stability Reserve for the EU Emissions Trading System (debate)

Madam President, Vice-President, ladies and gentlemen! I think it was an important sign in November that we were able to reach an agreement on LULUCF and ESR before or during COP27, sending a signal to Sharm al-Sheikh. I would like to reiterate that agriculture and forestry is the only sector that not only generates emissions but is also capable of sequestering carbon. This takes place in the fore…