Ireland moves closer to accepting CAP reforms
Negotiations were suspended last night until Monday. Participants are under intense pressure to reach an agreement before the EU leaders’ summit begins on Thursday.
A private deal between France and Germany came close to scuppering the proposals, but Commissioner Franz Fischler appeared ready to salvage whatever he could and push for some kind of reform.
The French, who get the lion’s share of subsidies, said they would compromise on decoupling.
The Germans, the largest contributor to the EU budget, agreed not to push for further reforms in exchange for French support on company takeover legislation.
Agriculture Minister Joe Walsh has said he is working with other like-minded countries - France, Spain, Portugal and Luxembourg - to develop a model that would suit farm development here. We have just three votes out of 87.
“We do not want to be isolated”, he said.
Ireland appears prepared to accept partial decoupling, but it would depend how it was done.
The IFA fears that forgoing subsidies for premium beef production will reduce the price of calves and have knock-on effects.
The Commission made some movement towards taking sheep and goat meat out of its list of products to be decoupled, but the Irish believe this does not address its main concerns.
Mr Walsh said: “I am very concerned about the proposals for decoupling, modulation and digressivity as they could cause us major problems and could siphon off €465m made to Irish farmers in direct payments.”
A spokesperson for Commissioner Fischler said: “We believe we have a good basis to work on now because the Irish have stopped saying ‘no’ to everything.”
Ministers and the Commissioner met for the first time in the two days over dinner last night when Mr Fischler was expected to indicate some elements of a compromise document.
