mr president thank you for the endorsement
i should say to our visitors that we normally ask for silence but i think we are being lenient today and i thank mr higgins for giving me the opportunity to speak
i have spoken about this already and i feel that this parliament did not realise yesterday in the salafranca sánchez-neyra report the implications of supporting that which i did not do
i am most concerned about the decision to reopen bilateral talks with the mercosur countries on two different levels
first of all it is in advance of the potential reopening of world trade talks and the bilateral deal may be worse than that at wto level
but secondly and they are linked there are real concerns about the selling-out on agriculture in the european union
these are not just my own concerns driven from an emotional basis the commission itself has said that there are severe implications for european agriculture if we do a deal in these talks with mercosur
again the beef sector the poultry sector and the pigmeat sector will be most affected
i could not support this report on that basis and i warn colleagues about its implications
