Dr. Franz FISCHLER

Member of the European Commission responsible for Agriculture, Rural Development and Fisheries

Farewell Toast Commissioner Fischler "I did it my way"

Informal Agriculture Council
Noordwijk, 6 September 2004

Ladies and Gentlemen, dear friends!

This is my last informal Council. I will therefore break with the tradition of limiting myself to thanking our host Cees who has excelled with organising this gorgeous informal Council.

As the French say, "partir est un peu mourir", which means that when we leave a place and an activity we feel as if a part of us dies.

I loved my job and am thankful to my Cabinet and the Directorate General for their remarkable support. I will no doubt regret leaving behind Brussels, the Commission, the European Parliament and above all you, the members of "our" Council.

During my time at the Commission, the CAP and the CFP have got more than a lift. While upholding the principle on which these treaty-based common policies were founded, these policies have been fundamentally redrawn to adapt them to the politics, the economics and the public mood of the new century - which call for efficiency, solidarity, quality, sustainability and subsidiarity in an increasingly global economy.

In the novel "Il gattopardo" its author Tomasi di Lampedusa lets Tancredi say to Prince di Salina: "Se vogliamo che tutto rimanga com'è, bisogna che tutto cambi" - If we want that everything remains as it is, all must change". Lampedusa was a mixture of anti-modern and avant-garde. He demonstrated that the old had been destroyed, with its defects and its qualities, but had regrettably left a void behind, because nobody had built the new.

Instead, the CAP and CFP reforms were meant to prevent the breakdown of the old agricultural and fisheries worlds progressively be destroyed by adapting them to the new realities in a globalised economy and preserving them in new forms.

I recognise of course the difficulties that these reforms have created to these relevant sectors and hence to you. All true reforms are controversial. But despite early confrontations pushed by the agriculture and fisheries lobbies, among others, I am glad to recall that agreement was reached nearly unanimously, including the most innovating elements such as the Single Farm Payment and the new conservation policy in the fisheries sector. Few believed such agreements were possible. Our success is a monument to the ingenuity, the open mindedness, the pragmatism and the courage of all of us.

Thanks to reform, the CAP remains the CAP and the CFP remains the CFP, but support for these policies now reaches beyond the dwindling number of farmers and fishermen. "Agriculture under the Public Eye", the very fitting theme of this Council, which we will discuss tomorrow, is in a better shape because of that.

Could we have done better? Yes of course, but we cannot forget that "Politics is the art of the possible".

I hope that the spirit we have shown will endure under this and future presidencies, be an inspiration for other Council formations, and show that common policies are effective and can be adapted to new realities, and that the Community method works best in promoting Member states mutual interests.

Except on sugar and possibly wine, the time of reforms in agriculture and fisheries is over. They must now be made to work. In this context, I wish to hand over the flame of our faith in thriving rural and fishing communities to the new Commissioners, Mariann Fischer-Boel and Joe Borg.

As to myself I have tried to occupy the ground that had been assigned to me, not as a manager, but as an agent of change, because it was long overdue and the best defence of the long-term interests of our farmers and fishermen.

But now that all has been said and done, that the reform message has been widely accepted, and that our position has become much more defendable internationally as shown by the agreed agenda for the WTO round, I think I can leave singing two of my favourite songs: "Je ne regrette rien" (Piaf) and "I did it my way" (Sinatra).

God bless you all, and let's keep in touch.