Community agricultural statistics: improvement and information

The committee adopted the report (codecision procedure, first reading) by Mrs Encarnación REDONDO JIMENEZ (EPP/ED, E) approving the Commission's proposals to amend legislation on the improvement of Community agricultural statistics. These proposals: extend until 2002 the system granting the Member States a financial contribution to their expenditure on measures to adapt their national agricultural statistical systems, simplify the system's management and allow for a 30 % advance on the Community contribution to be paid to the Member States. The committee clarified the Commission's wording to show that the advance concerns the Community contribution and not the total cost of the action. However, it wanted the Commission to go further and therefore tabled an amendment improving the Commission's identification of its statistical needs and expanding the scope of the statistical information which the Member States have to supply to the Commission. The committee believed that the Community would soon have to take major decisions relating to the development of the CAP, enlargement and the new WTO Round and those decisions would therefore need to rest on a solid statistical base. The committee also felt that CAP aid payments could provide a valuable source of statistical information and tabled an amendment requiring the Member States to gather information on them so as to allow a correct assessment of the instruments used.