madam president i am grateful to you for giving me the opportunity to explain why i abstained on the mcguinness report
it focuses on a very important aspect of the european union and that is the absolute essentiality of ensuring food supplies to those who are starving or those who do not have a proper food supply
nobody could be against that and i am certainly not against that
but the problem with the report in my view is that it looks and refers to the common agricultural policy and does not address the fact that there is an urgent need for the reform and further reform of that policy
it is not serving the people of europe well it is not serving the farmers of britain well
until that burden is taken away from the european taxpayers then we are going to be in difficulties
yes the objectives of the report are right but i am afraid that it fails very badly in addressing the core problem
