Blair project taken seriously
She's the woman in charge of the Common Agriculture Policy, targeted by UK Prime Minister Tony Blair in the course of EU budget negotiations.
He was isolated on this issue in the meeting of heads of state of the EU 25, so those who rely on the CAP for their livelihood didn't lose too much sleep.
But Blair was expected to trot out his anti-CAP argument again this week in the G8 summit of the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the UK and US, with leaders from China, India, Brazil, South Africa and Mexico and Africa also invited.
And support could be forthcoming there from Canada's Prime Minister Paul Martin, who last week launched a fierce attack on the EU and the US for maintaining high agricultural subsidies and making it difficult for poor countries to compete.
And with US President George Bush saying Washington would scrap subsidies to farmers if Europe had the courage to do the same, Fischer Boel has to be worried, although she has passed it off lightly by saying any "Scrap the CAP" publicity is good publicity, as long as they spell your name right.
Nevertheless she took the threat to the CAP seriously enough to make a detailed counter-argument at the Royal Show in England last week.
She addressed the theme of trust and confidence in the European idea, at centre stage after the negative referendum votes in France and the Netherlands.
"Breaking promises and making a game out of the livelihood of thousands of farmers and their families is no way to win the trust of sceptical citizens", she said.
She pointed out that farmers, like any other business people, need a stable financial framework. That framework was guaranteed by heads of state at the European Council in Brussels in December 2002.
All parties fixed the budget ceiling of the CAP's 'first pillar' direct payments and market measures until 2013.
"This deal was not struck lightheartedly", said Fischer Boel.
"It was part and parcel of the agreement to go ahead with the enlargement. No enlargement without stability on the CAP. That was clear."
"So when voices call for a review before 2013, we are not talking about re-opening a deal from decades ago over which there was a clear lack of consensus at the time. We are talking about ripping up a text, agreed by all, on which the ink is hardly dry."
Included in the deal is a mid-term assessment in 2008/2009, when she would look at the effects of the CAP reform, report to the Council and see what adjustment is needed.
By supporting EU farmers with cash rather than through prices and production, the deal also enabled the EU to put phasing out of agricultural export refunds on the table in world trade talks.
The deal which Tony Blair first signed and then belatedly attacked was the first step in opening EU markets further to imported agricultural produce but not, warns Fischer Boel, in such a way as to usher in damaging instability in key EU farming sectors.
She protests that the CAP is sometimes accused of being an economic dinosaur, but it has undergone three significant reforms in the last 15 years.
Brave talk from the Danish Commissioner, but what's worrying for farmers is that she takes the threat to the CAP seriously.
If Tony Blair has his way, Fischer Boel will go the way of the dinosaurs.
