AGRICULTURE: MEMBER STATES ENDORSE MODERN PROCEDURES FOR STATISTICAL ANALYSES.

The European Commission proposes to allocate Euro 12.5 million to the implementation of the programme over five years. The programme aims primarily to collect the necessary information for the implementation and monitoring of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), as well as for the analysis of interactions between agriculture, the environment and rural areas. It will also enable experts to draw up estimates at the Community level of the areas given over the principal crops. Finally, provision is made for monitoring the state of crops up to harvest, in order to provide accurate estimates of yield and

production.--The European Parliament initially approved the Commission's proposal for a Decision concerning the application of aerial surveillance and remote sensing techniques to agricultural statistics for the period 1999-2003 on January 13, 1999, in accordance with the former Article 43 of the EC Treaty. Following the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty, the Council considered that this proposal should henceforth find its legal basis in Article 285 of the EU Treaty, which stipulates that the Council, acting through the co-decision procedure, can pass measures with a view to the compiling of statistics required for the accomplishment of Community activities. On September 16, 1999, and this time in the context of the co-decision procedure...