What type of agriculture do we want 20 years from now? Is it our aim to safeguard the Community's export capacity? Which of agriculture's roles should receive special treatment? Is high-yield farming really incompatible with conserving the countryside and protecting the environment? What do we take to be the optimum number of people employed on the land? Apart from farming, what economic organization model can we offer the countryside? What sort of farms should we be aiming for? Finally, what price are our societies prepared to pay today in order to avoid bearing tomorrow the economic and social cost to the general public which would result from the bankruptcy of our farmers?

These few questions clearly demonstrate that the reform of the common agricultural policy (CAP) is not a matter for farmers alone, but to all citizens of the wider Europe of tomorrow. We are being offered - indeed, we are being called upon to make - a choice which concerns the nature of society itself.

The European Parliament is at the vanguard in the these matters. It is institution endowed by the Treaty of Rome with legislative powers admittedly limited, and, above all, with budgetary powers, a significant aspect of which is the funding of the CAP. It is also a form of democratic representation, that is, a forum for the expression of the many rich, but contradictory, veins running through our societies.

In general, Parliament acknowledges in terms comparable to those of Commissioner MacSharry the need for radical reform of a common agricultural policy which, though not intrinsically bad, has not managed to adapt in time and which entails a financial burden which is becoming heavier by the year and is all the less justifiable for being unequally distributed.

Parliament's concern with the financial burden therefore formed one of the cornerstones of its approach in considering both the background document and the Commission's legislative proposals. It is not, however, the only one, and, despite to considerable differences of opinion on the methods to be used, Parliament has resisted the reductionist temptation of viewing agriculture as nothing more than one economic sector among others, subject to the same rules and the same constraints as any other economic activity.

Agriculture is, of course, an archetypal productive sector, and there is no reason for Europe to be ashamed of the spirit of enterprise which has enabled farmers to improve the productivity of their workforce in a particularly spectacular fashion. However, European agriculture has other roles: outside the Community, it enables us to play a vital role in feeding the world, especially in emergencies, which deservedly gives the Community the image of a great humanitarian power; within the Community, agriculture plays an essential role in providing jobs and conserving the countryside - indeed, in preserving our cultural identity.

Parliament has placed great emphasis on these factors. The future not only of agriculture, but also of the rural environment, must be decisive when we determine the aims of reform. We must maintain a working population in all the regions of Europe, particularly in the less-favoured regions.

What we need is thus a long-term approach. There is, however, one additional factor blocking the implementation of a reform which is vitally necessary from any point of view - the current GATT talks and the powerful pressures being exerted by the United States in this context. Some are acting in this regard like rabbits fascinated by a snake. Parliament rejects the temptation of making ill-considered concessions in the agricultural field to ensure the 'success' of the Uruguay Round and stresses the need, in implementing our reform, to maintain a wider forward-looking vision which covers the Community's domestic and foreign responsibilities.

Franco BORGO

Chairman of the Committee on Agriculture,

Fisheries, and Rural Development of the European Parliament