Eurolink News

Call for clarity over CAP ‘health check’ proposals (21/5/08)

May 21, 2008 at 12:51 pm Leave a comment

A plan put forward by the European Commission this week to reform the Common Agricultural Policy marks the total transformation of EU farm policy since the 1980s, when efforts were focused on scaling back overproduction and reducing the infamous butter mountains and wine lakes. Instead, the range of proposals outlined by Agricultural Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel at the European Parliament in Strasbourg aims to boost production in response to the soaring global demand for food. The so-called CAP ‘health check’, which has yet to be approved by MEPs and member states, brings mixed news for Irish farmers.
The proposition to reduce direct farm payments will prove unpopular. Irish farmers receive an average of €17,500 each year from the EU. 5% of these payments are diverted to rural development programmes, but the Commission wants to increase this to 13%, in order to allocate more money towards areas like water management, climate change, renewable energy and biodiversity. Ireland East MEP Mairead McGuinness has called for details on exactly which projects will qualify as rural development. ‘It’s difficult to analyse whether this is a good or a bad move because we don’t have specifics,’ she said.
Farmers will be pleased however with plans to phase out milk quotas by 2015 and abolish rules on arable set aside. Milk quotas will be increased by 1% annually until 2013 to ensure a ‘soft landing’, while the current requirement for farmers to leave 10% of land fallow each year will be eliminated.
Fianna Fáil MEP Liam Aylward said he welcomed the proposal on milk quotas, but that he was against further cuts to direct farm payments. ‘We can ensure that these cuts remain voluntary,’ he said, ‘If we maintain our strong level of political influence in Europe by voting “Yes” to the Lisbon Treaty.’
Meanwhile, the Irish Farmers’ Association said the CAP health check was ‘secondary in significance’ to the WTO deal being proposed by EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson in Geneva. IFA President Padraig Walshe said, ‘Any initiatives to be announced by Mariann Fischer Boel would be meaningless as European agriculture would be decimated by the Mandelson proposals.’

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