Talks on future of farming
EU Farm Commissioner Franz Fischler has proposed the most radical changes yet to the 40-year-old Common Agricultural Policy.
The 626-member European Parliament will discuss the radical proposals in Strasbourg this week and then give an unbinding opinion.
That will open the way for the final phase of crucial negotiations at the next farm council meeting, which begins in Luxembourg on June 11.
More and more member states agree reform is necessary, and is necessary now. It should therefore be possible to wrap the package up in June.
That could be wishful thinking but sources in Brussels say there is a growing belief the June 30 deadline will be met.
Dr Fischler seeks to overhaul the distribution of funds by shifting aid from market production to rural development, quality production and support for better environmental standards.
Decoupling, the separation of farm subsidies from production and their replacement with a single payment based on historical reference, is the most contentious element.
Agriculture Minister Joe Walsh accepts the farm council faces a difficult choice in relation to decoupling. He said: "On the one hand, the commission's proposals would simplify the current system, which is bureaucratic and cumbersome for farmers and national administrations alike.
"Full decoupling is also likely to result in improvements in farm incomes in many cases, as farmers will opt out of uneconomic production while still retaining their entitlements to direct payments. On the other hand, production will fall in certain sectors in certain member states the beef and sheep meat sectors are those affected in Ireland with serious consequences for the wider rural economies of the member states."
Mr Walsh said a majority of ministers in the council, including Ireland, have been opposed to full decoupling.
Partial decoupling is gathering increasing support among member states. However, 27 different variations have been suggested.
Teagasc economists, attached to the FAPRI Ireland analysis unit, claim the majority of this country's dairy and beef farmers would do better if the EU proposals were implemented.
They predict, however, the reforms would result in a rapid acceleration in the decline in the number of dairy farmers from 26,500 to 15,000 by 2012. But those remaining dairy farmers would have incomes 25% higher.
As sections of the farm lobby disputed many of the FAPRI findings, the IFA published counter proposals.
IFA president John Dillon said the Fischler proposals would result in the winding down of the CAP with EU payments totally decoupled. The IFA's policy is that CAP supports must be linked to productive farming.
He said the approach of making payments without any link to production would destroy family farming in Europe.
John Deegan, president of the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers Association, the only farm body here in support of full decoupling, said FAPRI had vindicated the stance it had taken.
