Fruit and vegetables: common organisation of the market COM

1995/0247(CNS)
In adopting the report by Mr MIGUEL ARIAS CANETE (EPP, E), the European Parliament amended the proposal to amend the COM in fresh fruit and vegetables as follows. Parliament: - opposes the replacement of Community quality standards by those laid down by the UN Economic Commission for Europe; - rejects the possibility of allowing Member States to exempt a number of products (traditional local consumption) from compliance with the standards; - calls for the transitional period of four years granted to the Member States to be extended to six years in order to allow the development of adjustment plans financed entirely by the EU and designed to facilitate the integration of POs with serious structural deficiencies and the creation of new ones; - recommends, with regard to the Operational Fund, modifying financing and making the use of the Fund's resources more flexible in order to ensure that withdrawals of up to 15% of the marketing volume of the POs are financed 80% by the Community budget; - supports the maintenance of the basic withdrawal prices at the level of the weighted average of the average monthly prices applicable during the 1995/1996 marketing year; - requests, for products with institutional prices, that withdrawal compensation remain unchanged throughout the year and be financed by the EAGGF. Such compensation should be established for each variety, except in the case of tomatoes, for which compensation should always be at the highest level for any of the varieties; - in the case of citrus fruit, the EP adopts, for the withdrawal compensation for oranges and lemons, the weighted average withdrawal price for each of these products applicable for the 1995/1996 marketing year, and in the case of clementines and satsumas, the weighted average withdrawal price of mandarins for the same marketing year. Finally, the EP supports: - the strengthening of measures to combat fraud, the laying down of penalties and the Community character of checks; - campaigns to promote consumption of fresh products and the maintenance of existing measures in the case of nuts; - the funding of income support programmes for regions largely dependent on fruit and vegetables. �