44 Amendments of Maria HEUBUCH related to 2016/2141(INI)
Amendment 2 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 6 a (new)
Citation 6 a (new)
- having regard to the infringement proceedings against the Member States Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary, which the Commission is either planning or has already brought;
Amendment 7 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A a (new)
Recital A a (new)
Aa. whereas this unequal distribution of farmland is the counterpart of unequal distribution of CAP subsidies, as direct payments, which account for a large proportion of CAP expenditure, are mainly made per hectare;
Amendment 9 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A b (new)
Recital A b (new)
Ab. whereas the actual distribution of land and subsidies could be even more unequal, as the statistics available do not make it possible to establish anything about the ownership and control of farms;
Amendment 24 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital C
Recital C
C. whereas land, a is an increasingly scarce andsset, which is non-renewable, asset, should not be treated as an ordinary item of merchandise, nd whereas land is the basis of the human right to healthy and sufficient food and of many ecosystem services vital to survival and therefore should not be treated as an ordinary item of merchandise but its availability under private law should be guided and limited, and whereas land is furthermore doubly threatened both by the loss of agricultural land through soil sealing, urban development and infrastructure projects, and by the concentration of land in the hands of large- scale agricultural undertakings and investors from outside the farming sector;
Amendment 34 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D
Recital D
D. whereas the Member States, for their political decisions on land market policy, need comprehensive, up-to- date, transparent and high-quality data on land tenure, property structures, leasing structures, price and volume movements on the land markets, as regards both ownership and renting and also relevant social and environmental indicators at European level have so far been lacking and, in some Member States, are collected and published only incompletely;
Amendment 39 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D a (new)
Recital D a (new)
Da. whereas political decisions and legislation on land market policy are matters for the Member States, but have a serious impact on the competitiveness of farms on the internal market;
Amendment 42 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D b (new)
Recital D b (new)
Db. whereas the sale of land to non- agricultural investors and holding companies is an urgent problem throughout the Union and whereas the new Member States in particular, since the moratoriums on the sale of land to foreigners expired, have faced particularly strong pressure to amend their legislation, because the comparatively low land prices accelerate the sale of farmland to large investors;
Amendment 46 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital E
Recital E
E. whereas a broad distribution of assets in agricultural land is an essential founding principle of the social market economy and an important precondition for the social cohesion of a country’s economy, for job creation in rural areas and for high agricultural value added;
Amendment 52 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital F
Recital F
F. whereas farmland areas are particularly important for water management and the climate, as well as for biodiversity and, soil fertility, and are alread and landscape conservation, and are increasingly suffering as a result of climate change and, soil erosion and poor cultivation;
Amendment 60 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital G
Recital G
G. whereas land ownershipsmall-scale, diverse, multifunctional, site-specific agriculture with small and medium-sized farms, distributed ownership, secure tenure and access to common land, is the best way of ensuring a responsible relationship with the land and sustainable land management, and also fosters identification and a sense of belonging, encouraging people to remain in rural areas and enabling them to work there; whereas this has an positive impact on the socio-economic infrastructure of rural areas, and whereas the separation of ownership and possessionunequal distribution of, and access to, land and natural resources increases the risk of a division within society, a loss in quality of work and life, and impoverishment;
Amendment 75 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital H
Recital H
H. whereas the aim of Europe’s agricultural policy is a multi-functional agriculture characterised by capital- owningsmall to medium-sized family and cooperative farms with land ownership, a broad distribution of assets and, secure tenure and access to commonland, which are managed sustainably and thus guarantee a diverse, residence-based agricultural structure with traditions, legal certainty and responsibility for the benefit of society, the environment and future generations;
Amendment 83 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital H a (new)
Recital H a (new)
Ha. whereas agriculture based on small and medium-sized farms run by families alone or with the support of consumers (Community Supported Agriculture, CSA) is a very promising model for the future, including from the economic point of view, as these farms often feature a good deal of internal diversification, making them resilient, and contribute to a high level of added value in rural areas;
Amendment 106 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital K
Recital K
K. whereas farmland prices and rents have risen in many regions to a level which makes it economically impossible for many farms to hold on to rented land or acquire the additional land needed to keep farms viablesmall and medium-sized farms viable, let alone to start new farms, as there is hardly any land on the market;
Amendment 109 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital K a (new)
Recital K a (new)
Ka. whereas in many Member States sale prices and, in some cases, rents for farmland are no longer based on the farm incomes which can be derived from food production;
Amendment 111 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital K b (new)
Recital K b (new)
Kb. whereas demand for food and feed is supplemented by rising demand for raw materials for the 'bioeconomy', such as biofuels and raw materials for the chemicals and textiles industries, which inspires interest in acquiring farmland on the part of new operators;
Amendment 126 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital M
Recital M
M. whereas, particularly since the 2007 financial and economic crisis, purchases of farmland have been regarded as a safe investment and, in many Member States, farmland has been bought up in alarming quantities by non-agricultural investors, and whereas land ownership will remain a safe investment even in the event of future inflation;
Amendment 134 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital M a (new)
Recital M a (new)
Ma. whereas Member States forgo tax revenue if land changes hands as a result of acquisition of shares, because in many Member States the law on land transactions which is in force does not apply to acquisition of shares;
Amendment 137 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital M b (new)
Recital M b (new)
Mb. whereas the existing rules on the capping of direct payments above EUR 150 000 become inoperative if legal persons own multiple agricultural subsidiaries, each of which receives less than EUR 150 000 in direct payments;
Amendment 138 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital M c (new)
Recital M c (new)
Mc. whereas limited companies are moving into farming at an alarming speed, often operate across borders and often have business models which are guided far more by land speculation than by an interest in agricultural production;
Amendment 139 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital M d (new)
Recital M d (new)
Md. whereas the problems which have been described apply not only to farmland but, with a similar degree of urgency, to forests and fisheries as well;
Amendment 145 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Calls for the creation of a central observatory tasked with recording the level of farmland concentration in the EU, changes in land use and the market behaviour of owners and tenants, and with issuing regular reportsat EU level tasked with obtaining an overview of farmland tenure throughout the Union, recording purchase prices and rents at NUTS 2 level, and observing and regularly reporting on the loss of farmland due to changes in land use, trends in soil fertility and land erosion;
Amendment 161 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Calls on the Commission to createtake up once again the project of creating a legal basis in order to ensure the regular collection of data of comparable quality on rent levels and land prices, in connection with all sales of farmland and farm shcluding the acquisition of land by means of share purchases and on transactions involving large areas by agricultural undertakingsof land, the loss of tenure and speculative price rises, in all Member States;
Amendment 182 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Considers it sensible to create a uniform, Europe-wide land inventory in which all ownership rights and rights of use in respect of farm land are recorded in an up-to-date and accurate manner and presented in a comprehensible form in a publicly accessible digital data bankon the one hand made available to the licensing authorities and on the other hand published in the form of anonymised statistics;
Amendment 189 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3 a (new)
Paragraph 3 a (new)
3a. Calls on the Commission, for the first time in 2017 and subsequently at regular intervals, to report to the Council and Parliament on the situation regarding land use, structure, prices and national and European policies and laws on the ownership and renting of farmland, summarising the available data on soil fertility and erosion and on sealing and changes of use of farmland;
Amendment 190 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3 b (new)
Paragraph 3 b (new)
3b. Calls on the Commission, on this basis, to draw up a separate regular report to the FAO Committee on World Food Security concerning the implementation of the Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the European Union;
Amendment 211 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Takes the view that land policy must help to ensure or restore a socially desirable broad distribution of land ownership and appropriate access to land, as ithis has direct implications for everyone’s living and working conditions and quality of life, and noterecalls the important social function of land ownership given that a loss of farms and jobs will lead to the collapse of European smallholder agriculture and the demise of rural areas, and thus to structural changes that are undesirable for society as a whole;
Amendment 222 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Recommends that the Member States give farmers priority in the purchase of farmlandto small and medium- sized and young farmers with regard to access to farmland, and to focus particularly on promoting sustainable production methods, particularly at a time when non-farmers are increasingly interested in purchasing agricultural plots;
Amendment 242 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. Takes the view that land market policy should help make it easier for young people to enter agriculture, over and above the encouragement for young farmers enshrined in the common agricultural policy; calls, therefore, for a comprehensive approach that helps enable qualifiskilled young farmers and new entrepreneurs to take over or start farms;
Amendment 244 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7 a (new)
Paragraph 7 a (new)
7a. Calls on the Commission and Member States to launch a comprehensive inquiry into the problems which arise in the transfer of farms from one generation to another, with particular reference to the transfer of farms outside the family;
Amendment 265 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8 a (new)
Paragraph 8 a (new)
8a. Encourages the Member States to use instruments to regulate the market in land, which are already being used successfully in some Member States, such as state licensing of land sales and leases, rights of pre-emption, obligations to cultivate the land in person, restrictions on the right of purchase by legal persons, ceilings on the number of hectares that may be bought, preference for local buyers, land banking, indexation of prices with reference to farm incomes, etc.; would remind Member States that tax legislation gives them an effective lever by means of which to regulate the land market; considers the French model of the 'SAFER' not-for-profit public limited companies to be an excellent example, but at the same time points out that existing models constantly need to be adapted to meet new challenges and take into account national circumstances;
Amendment 274 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9
Paragraph 9
9. Calls for the implementation by the EU and its Member States, in the interest of developing a clear EU guiding principle for the structure of farming, of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, which has been ratified by all Member States; calls in particular for measures to be taken to subordinate the use of, and control over, such resources which are state-owned to wider social, economic and environmental objectives, and for an end to be put to undesirable impacts which land speculation and concentration have on local communities, particularly endangered groups;
Amendment 277 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9 a (new)
Paragraph 9 a (new)
9a. Considers that in future the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) should be designed to: - prevent public funds from being used to subsidise ownership rather than farming of farmland; - support small and medium-sized farms by means of mandatory capping and redistribution of hectare-based direct payments; - do more to promote and support access for young farmers of both genders and new entrants to farming;
Amendment 291 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10
Paragraph 10
10. Proposes a mandatory cap onreducing the part of direct payments exceeding the upper limit of EUR 150 000 by 5%, as set out in Article 11 of Regulation No 1307/2013 (the Direct Payments Regulation), as well as the compulsory reduction by at least 5% of the part of the basic payment due to the farmer which exceedsmandatory capping using the upper limit of EUR 15300 000;
Amendment 295 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10 a (new)
Paragraph 10 a (new)
10a. Calls on the Commission to publish information not only on owners of farms that receive CAP subsidies but also on recipients such as land owners/parent companies;
Amendment 312 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11 a (new)
Paragraph 11 a (new)
11 a. Notes that is essential to level out direct payment rates between member states in order to ensure a level playing field for competition in the EU's single market, as well as for sustainable production;
Amendment 321 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 12 a (new)
Paragraph 12 a (new)
12a. Encourages Member States to make greater use of the scope already available to them to cap and redistribute CAP funds;
Amendment 325 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13
Paragraph 13
13. Calls on the Commission to monitor all relevant policy areas to see whether they promote or counteract the concentration of agricultural land in the EU, such as agriculture, energy, environment, regional development, mobility, finance and investment, to see whether they promote or counteract the concentration of agricultural land in the EU, and to launch a consultation process in order, jointly with farmers and their organisations, as well as other relevant stakeholders, to assess the current state of implementation of the Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests ;
Amendment 331 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13 a (new)
Paragraph 13 a (new)
13a. Recommends that Member States undertake a targeted examination of the national implementation of the existing CAP with reference to undesirable effects on concentration of land;
Amendment 343 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14
Paragraph 14
14. Endorses the Commission’s finding that land is a finite resource which is already under much pressure as a result of climate change, soil erosion and over- exploitation, and calls for farmland to be given special protection with a view to compliance with the four fundamental European freedoms, so that the Member States can regulate the use, sale and letting of agricultural land in the light of social and environmental criteria;
Amendment 345 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14 a (new)
Paragraph 14 a (new)
14a. Suggests that, in the interests of interinstitutional transparency, the Commission should give the European Parliament better insight into the documents on infringements of the Treaties and preliminary proceedings in connection with regulation of the land market by the Member States;
Amendment 349 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15
Paragraph 15
15. Calls on the Commission to draw up and publish a list of criteria making it clear to the Member States what land market regulation measures arepolicy objectives in the public interest and what measures for their attainment are, in its opinion, permitted in the context of the four freedoms of the European Union;
Amendment 354 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15 a (new)
Paragraph 15 a (new)
15a. Calls on the Commission to draw up an overview of the national provisions which currently apply to the purchase, sale and leasing of farmland and also to assess how efficient they are in attaining the above-mentioned objectives;
Amendment 357 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15 b (new)
Paragraph 15 b (new)
15b. Recognises the sovereignty of Member States with regard to land transactions, yet considers, at the same time, that an EU directive is needed to set out common European objectives and lay down legal minimum standards;
Amendment 361 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16
Paragraph 16
16. Calls on the Commission to raise the awareness of the Member States about, and support them in combating, corruption in connection with land saletransactions;