Speeches

Ensuring equality between men and women is an important objective. Equal pay for equal work has been a fundamental principle of the EU for decades, and it is crucial that we continue to have a sustained focus on reducing the gender gap. As the report also shows, gender equality is a fundamental value in the EU, and equal pay for equal work is crucial here. At the same time, the Left acknowledges that the challenges are complex. The report contains a number of relevant initiatives. These are positive elements. However, the Pay Transparency Directive is repeatedly referred to as a key tool. Here the Liberal Party's position is clear: The directive risks imposing significant administrative burdens on companies without any documented effect. It thus appears to be a bureaucratic and relatively narrow instrument. Against this background, the Liberal Party has chosen to vote in favour of the report.

Mr President! I have been a farmer for over 40 years and the reality we face today is markedly different from back then. In Europe, there are fewer and fewer cattle. At the same time, we are experiencing increasing political pressure that may ultimately jeopardise our food security. It is serious, and at a time of global uncertainty, it is more important than ever that we can produce our own food, that we can keep production in European hands, that we are independent of others when it comes to something as fundamental as food on our table. Costs are rising and rising. The prices of energy and fertilizer are pushing us from all sides. This is the reality the farmer is facing at the moment. We need a strong European agriculture. We must ensure that, in the future too, there are farmers in Europe who can produce our food, and that is the only way we can ensure that our food security is intact.

Madam President! EU agricultural policy needs to be simplified – not in spreadsheets, but in reality. Agriculture suffers from data tyranny. The dates control when we should sow and when we should be done harvesting. The weather does not conform to spreadsheets, and Mother Earth does not conform to the calendar. Even so, the farmer is severely punished if the date is exceeded. It's desk farming. It does not benefit the climate, food production or our competitiveness. We need to get our senses back. We need to remove the many burdens. We need to put an end to paperwork. Our hands must produce and not control. Instead of processes and dates, we need to measure results and impact. Our agricultural policy must ensure food security. Our agricultural policy must be de-bureaucratised. Our farmers must be freed from their desks and spend their time in the stables and on the field.

Mr President! Thank you for the word. Simplification of agricultural policy is very, very important. That's why I put on the rubber boots today, Hansen, and they're washed. Less bureaucracy so that time can be spent in the stable and in the field. It makes no sense for us to simplify the rules with one hand and create a new bureaucratic monster with the other. The proposal for compulsory contracts in the dairy sector is a slap in the face for our shareholders and cooperatives. This is legislation for the sake of legislation, not common sense. I have been a farmer for over forty years and we have a strong cooperative model where farmers own the dairies together and share risk and gain. This ensures full transparency. We should support the models that have worked for over 150 years and not destroy them. Therefore, cooperatives should be exempted from this contact model. It will destroy the farmers.

Madam President! We must ensure that the EU's agricultural policy is also common in the future. The CAP must remain as EU funding. It creates a level playing field and it protects the internal market and prevents renationalisation. We must ensure a realistic green transition where climate and environment go hand in hand with food production and competitiveness. And then we need to make sure that new technology becomes usable for all farmers. Budget remains necessary especially for young and active farmers. We must move towards more result-oriented payments as a complement, and we must remember that food supply is a security policy. Europe needs stable food and supply chains, not least in this troubled world we have right now. Therefore, we need to simplify the rules so that it becomes easier to be a farmer. Equally important is ensuring strong generational renewal, because without young people there is no future for agriculture, secure access to land and capital, and future-proof. We need to remember who we work for. The farmer with the boots on, the consumer with the shopping cart and future generations, who must have a robust Europe to be in.

Madam President! Food prices are high. Too high. Rules, control systems and documentation for the sake of documentation create costs. The farmer, the transporters and the merchant spend hours and days on paperwork and reporting. It does not make the food safer or the production greener. Every time we put a new layer of regulation on, we put a layer of cost on the price. It's completely foolish, and it only makes it more expensive to produce, more expensive to transport, more expensive to sell. And guess who's paying? The consumer does. We cannot afford a food system where a large part of the money goes to keep the paper piles alive. We must, of course, have responsible standards. Yes, we will. We want to make it easier to be a farmer. We want to make it easier to be a producer. We want to make it easier to be a merchant. When we simplify the rules, we unnecessarily cut red tape and then costs fall throughout the supply chain. This leads to lower prices. Not in ten years, but tomorrow. For every penny we save on unnecessary bureaucracy, we release resources. Proper settlement to those who produce, and food on the table at a price people can pay. That's common sense. This is necessary and urgent.

Mr President! Agriculture is one of Europe's most important sectors. Farmers make sure we have food on the table every day. Food security is a security policy. That is why I very much welcome the Commission's proposal to focus on simplifying rules and simplifying their vision. The farmer needs less time at the desk and more time in the field and in the stable. It is crucial that we de-bureaucratise in order to be competitive, but I have my concerns. The Commission's proposal for a common market organisation, where mandatory contracts are concluded, creates unnecessary administration and disrupts well-functioning markets such as the Danish ones. I hope that the Commission will support exports to third countries. Exports create jobs, investment and a future for European farmers. In times of uncertainty, it is important that we safeguard agriculture to ensure food security.

Mr President! As a farmer there, I know that working on agriculture is not just a profession. It's a way of life. We live in the countryside. We live with the country. We live off the land. It can be hard, physical and demanding work, so it often takes place under pressure and isolation from the outside world. Farmers have natural challenges. We are really dependent on the weather, and it is frustrating if it dries away or it rains away. But after all the weather, we will never be the master over. At the same time, we live out there, where there is a little longer between the houses, and where there is a little longer for the help of good and evil. But farmers are also living under extreme physical and psychological pressure with all the regulation and control that we currently have. And we're going to change that. We must listen to a lot from the outside world that constantly exhausts them. We can't be familiar with that. European farmers produce world-class food, and that is also a security policy aspect. We owe them a huge thank you for their work. We must make life easier for farmers through de-bureaucratisation.

Mr President! On my farm in Denmark, we have managed to reduce our climate impact by 15 percent over the last four years, while at the same time producing world-class milk. Agriculture and the green transition are not each other's opposites, they are each other's prerequisites. Money in the box, of course, freedom of technology, debureaucratization, competitiveness, that is absolutely crucial. In order for us to achieve our climate goals, massive investments are also needed. This money can come from many places. Greater budget or perhaps a European emissions trading system for CO2. But the money in the box is not alone. We must have freedom of technology, freedom to choose the technology that best suits our farms and our business models. The world needs more animal proteins. We have to meet that demand. But we need to have the right incentives. We need to take both the climate and the economy with us. One thing is for sure, it will never be out of fashion to eat.

Mr President! We are to be masters of our own house. It is crucial that we ensure future food security in Europe. If we don't have enough food for our people, then everything else really doesn't matter. But of course we need to produce greener and more sustainable. Europe already has the greenest agriculture in the world, but of course we can be even better. We need to produce more for less in the future. This means that we need to use all the tools we have in the toolbox when it comes to technology and innovation opportunities. It is plant breeding, it is precision farming, it is biodiversity, it is biopesticides and it is carbon farming. Yes, of course we have to use all that, but it has to work out in reality, out at the farmers, out at the farmers, and it requires that we get up to speed to get the new technologies approved. We are lacking that here in Europe.

Madam President! People are killed because of their love. Man should not be condemned to death for loving another man of the same sex. It is absurd and it is inhumane. I praise myself for every day that my children and grandchildren grow up and are born in Denmark, where you have the right to love whoever you want. But even though we are a pioneer in the EU in relation to LGBT+ rights, we should not be blind to the fact that people experience discrimination in the EU on a daily basis and that several Member States make hateful and discriminatory laws against these people. My own son is gay. He was beaten up because of his sexuality. This is something we need to do a lot about. It is a thing of the past and must be stopped. Instead, let's look ahead and make the future even better for those people. We can, we must, and we will.

Madam President! I'm a farmer and I'm wearing my boots, Commissioner! Across Europe, farmers are demonstrating with their tractors. That's because the uncertainty is very, very, very great. Economic uncertainty after the Ukraine crisis, rising fuel prices, inflation and being flooded by products from Ukraine. But also the uncertainty about excessive environmental legislation on the part of the EU. I would like to say that I can understand the farmers. I think we need to take a timeout right now. The green transition is of course important, but it has simply gone too fast at a pace that many of my colleagues cannot keep up with. We need to reduce the administrative burden. I think the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said it a year ago: We need to reduce the administrative burden by 25%. We could start with that. We also need to step up the technologies that can help us find a solution: NGT, green alternatives, precision farming, carbon farming and many other things. And then we need to get our approval of biopesticides up and running so that we can use them. And we need a quick implementation. We cannot afford to wait.

Madam President! We are to be the master of our own house. We do this by keeping innovation and production in European hands. That is why we must allow the use of the new plant breeding techniques, CRISPR, tomorrow. Otherwise, the train will pass Europe. In many parts of the world, new technologies are already being developed. That is why we must now make the decision. Technologies such as CRISPR are a huge benefit for the climate, the environment and food security, and it will be a great help to our farmers. The world's population is growing, and we must produce more for less. We need all the tools we have in the toolbox - including the new ones! Thousands of scientists have asked us to vote yes to CRISPR. This is essential to keep innovation and research in European hands. This is crucial for the fight. The climate fight.

Mr. President! Commissioner! The President! Colleague! The proposal that is underway, with a total bottom trawl ban, is one of the worst I have seen. The power of desk politics needs to be looked for for a long time. Our fishermen, they supply some of the world's greenest and healthiest foods. We can be proud of that and I really hope that Parliament will approve our compromise proposal from the Committee on Fisheries. Therefore, it has been crucial for me that we make a plan that the fishermen can both live by and live with. For me, it is crucial that the fishermen – at least – sit at the negotiating tables that are now to be in the future. Fishermen must be consulted when proposals with such serious consequences are made. They are the ones who make sure we have healthy, green and nutritious food on our plates – even when caught with bottom trawls. Bottom trawls can easily be sustainable.

Madam President! Commissioner! Colleague! Farmer! Europe must also be self-sufficient in food in the future. If we don't have food security, we make ourselves vulnerable. The climate, nature, animals also need us to produce our own food in Europe, because we are the greenest food cluster in the world and have the best animal welfare. Unfortunately, we see floods and droughts in several places. It destroys the harvest for European farmers. And we are becoming more and more people. In the future, we need to produce more for less. We need all the tools we have in the toolbox. It's plant breeding, bio-solutions, precision farming and much, much more. We can't afford to sit on our hands anymore. We need to get out with the new technologies. They're going to fly. We must produce more for less, and production must be European for the benefit of the economy, the climate, nature, animal welfare, farmers and European citizens.

Mr President! The Commission's first proposal for pesticide legislation was on the moon. This would have meant that 90% of the area in Denmark is sensitive areas, and then you might as well have closed down Danish plant production. We have already halved the pesticides in Denmark by more than 50% since 2011. Danish farmers both can and will reduce further with new technology. But there must be time to implement new technology. Reduction should be rewarded. Carrot rather than whip. Food security is very important that we also take part in this discussion. We have some good goals for 2035. We all agree that we should go after 2035. And of course we must take CRISPR technology into consideration in this area, and precision farming must help drive development, but the approval of biopesticides must be speeded up! It is simply necessary for us to be able to get new funds on the ground so that farmers can reduce further. I would recommend that we vote in favour of the AGRI amendment.

Mr. President! Food supply has never been more important than it is now. We are becoming more and more people. Young farmers play an extremely important role in this process, and they need to be helped to get started more easily. It is the young people who will be providing food on the plates in the future. But as it is today, it is far too difficult for young people to enter the profession. I myself have two sons who are entering the agricultural industry. Bureaucracy and economic barriers take up a lot of space in their everyday lives, and we need to make it easier for them to enter the agricultural industry. Just as Ursula von der Leyen said in her State of the Union speech; We need to cut red tape. This is something that young people will greatly appreciate. And thank you very much to all the young people who, after all, enter the agricultural industry and help make the plates full around the world.

Madam President! Of course, I would also have liked to have seen the Commissioner for Fisheries in this debate, because it is very, very important for fishermen. And thanks to Clara for a great job you've done. Finally, there will be an agreement that fishermen have been looking forward to for a long time, and they deserve it. There are many good elements in the new fisheries control that will make life easier for fishermen. Thanks for that! But I cannot understand how to force fishermen to put cameras on their vessels without lightening the burden on them instead. We could easily have done this by giving fishermen a free choice of gear when they have cameras on their vessels. Because when you can see everything that comes out of the sea with the cameras, the fishermen must also be able to decide for themselves what kind of gear they use to catch the fish. The "something-for-something" principle, I think, is missing.

Madam President! I am really pleased to be able to speak here in the European Parliament today. I can no longer do that on Twitter because I've been banned from that account. My account has been suspended because I've spoken critically about wolves. I believe that the Commission must give us some more tools in the toolbox to regulate the soaring wolf population, Margrethe Vestager. In other words, we should be allowed to shoot the problem wolves here and now. Thank you to the Commission for looking into the matter. It is about listening to the many citizens and companies who have sent in stays. They live in fear of their livestock being killed at night. Some do not dare to leave their pram in the garden because of the wolves. You look around next time you go for a walk in the woods. It's not supposed to be like that!

Mr President! Thank you for the presence of the Commissioners today. Yesterday we discussed agriculture and the Commissioner for Agriculture was not present. Thank you so much for being here now. I am seriously concerned about the action plan that has come from the Commission on behalf of the fishermen. This is very far from reality. There are really, really, really many plans for our marine environment, biodiversity, nature, offshore wind turbines, shipping lanes, nature protection, etc. Where is there room for the fishermen? Fishermen must be given first priority in my view in order to ensure healthier, climate-friendly and protein-containing food. They catch with trawls. That's the reality. But there is a huge difference between bottom trawls and beam trawls. The Commission's action plan says that these differences have not been looked at. We must continue to develop new and innovative fishing gears that create more sustainable fishing. Fishermen are already doing well. We must have an overall plan for what the sea is to be used for, and in my opinion animal proteins are the first on the agenda. Of course, this has to be done in a sustainable way. As it is today, only fishermen have been given quotas. Cormorant, seals have free access to a large self-service table. Of course, there has to be room for everyone. Fish, energy, nature and so on. But the Commission's proposal goes too far. I will let the fishermen's demonstration yesterday speak its own language.

Mr President! I am very pleased to be able to help start this debate today on the European Citizens' Initiative 'Stop Finning – Stop the Trade' in this Chamber. There are well over a million people who have signed this initiative, and we must take this very seriously as parliamentarians, because there are so many who want this debate to be made visible. It is about democracy, and that is why this debate is very, very important. Sharks play an important role in the ecosystem. Since the mid-eighties, sharks have been subject to increasing fishing pressure and demand for shark fins, particularly on the Asian market. The EU has notoriously acted in 2003 and again in 2013. For over 20 years, shark finning has been banned in EU waters and on all EU vessels – and there it is that it looks completely crazy that elsewhere you cut off shark fins and throw the rest of your body into the water. It is simply unethical, especially when it comes to an endangered species. This makes the EU a world leader in sustainably conserving and managing sharks. The aim of their initiative is to go one step further and prohibit trade in shark fins, including import, export and transit of these products. In March last year, this proposal was presented to the PECH Committee by the organisers and to the Commissioner. The Commissioner then announced that the Commission would make a communication before July '23, and I hope we will see that soon. Today's debate is a good opportunity to exchange views on this serious issue. I look forward to the debate. And thank you for all participating in the democratic process about such a serious problem.

Mr President! Commissioner, please! Do we have a Commissioner for Agriculture, can I ask? Development, not dismantling! This is the future of agriculture, and this is the DNA of farmers. New tools need to be included in the toolbox: new genomic techniques, rapid approvals of biopesticides, precision farming. This is necessary to achieve the green transition. High and efficient agricultural production is essential to meet the growing demand for food worldwide. The security of food supply is absolutely crucial. Therefore, there is no need to develop. Many farmers are already well underway with new innovative measures against food waste. This is the only way to protect the climate and the environment. Therefore, it makes no sense to whip farmers with taxes and bureaucratic rules. We need the carrot rather than the whip in the green transition.

Mr President! People are killed because of their love. It is about basic human rights. Man should not be condemned to death for loving another man of the same sex. It is absurd and it is inhumane. I praise myself every day for the fact that my children and grandchildren are born in Denmark, where you can love whoever you want. Although we are a pioneer in the EU in relation to LGBT+ rights, we should not be blind to the fact that LGBT+ people experience discrimination in the EU on a daily basis. And several Member States are making hateful and discriminatory laws against these people. It must be stopped! Let's look ahead and make our future even better for LGBT+ people. We can! We have to! We owe it to them!