CAP reforms ‘cannot be undermined’

Carlow: Any suggestion that concessions in agriculture are the price for progress elsewhere in the WTO negotiations must be strongly rejected, according to the Agriculture and Food Minister Mary Coughlan, who was speaking at the Agricultural Science Association annual conference in Tullow, Co Carlow, yesterday.

“We cannot allow the undermining of the CAP reforms that we have undertaken,” she said, noting the recent comments from certain political leaders within the EU to the effect that refunds could be eliminated within a very short number of years.

Ms Coughlan said this is simplistic and insensitive to the realities of many countries such as Ireland and must be challenged.

“We should not be unduly influenced by those countries who have always had huge commercial farms or who have chosen for their own internal reasons to abolish most of their agricultural supports. I will not be prepared, therefore, to accept a new agreement which necessitates further reform of the CAP.”

She said the argument about the cost of the CAP in overall terms and the proportion of the EU budget that it absorbs is artificial and one-sided. The cost of supporting agriculture is less than half of 1% of EU GNP, and falling.

“Farming in the EU is predominantly family farming. We cannot compete with the huge commercial farms in America and Australia. If the European family farm had been exposed, for example, to the free market for a return over the last few decades, there would be virtually no family farms left,” she said.