Coveney warning of ‘civil war’ over flat rate plan
He has spelled out his own plan to counter the Commission proposal that Ireland switch from historically-based payments to flat rate, area-based payments.
According to Mr Coveney, the flat rate proposal would see the most productive farmers at present losing 60% of their payment on average, while farmers in less productive areas would gain an average of 85%.
“This level of switching resources will, in my view, significantly damage the productivity of Irish farming in terms of the capacity of the productive sector to invest and expand as we would like it to do,” said the minister.
But he rejected the Commission’s alternative, that Ireland use flexibility to break up the country into various regions which would receive differing flat rate payments. The political challenge of trying to break up Ireland into 20 or 30 regions “would be impossible and would cause civil war throughout Ireland”, he warned.
Ireland’s counter-proposal is that the Commission’s plan for redistributing direct payments between member states also be applied within states. Under this plan, everybody under 90% of the average payment would be moved towards 90% of the average figure by one third — which would be paid for by everybody over the average.
“If we used the same philosophy with regard to the distribution of the single farm payment in Ireland, it would mean a redistribution, but instead of the productive sector on average losing 40%, 50% or 60%, it might lose 10% or 15%, and instead of the less productive sector gaining 70%, 80% or 90% on payments, it may gain 20%, 30% or 35%,” said the minister.
“This is the type of compromise towards which we are trying to work and I believe it can be sold to both sides of the equation, including those farming in less favoured or disadvantaged areas.”
Mr Coveney said Agriculture Commissioner Ciolos returned to Brussels from his recent visit to Ireland understanding in real detail the Irish problem as regards CAP, in particular the towards flat rate, area-based payments.
“Some redistribution of these funds is necessary and we are trying to put in place a mechanism which will allow for this without a massive resource shift from the productive sector to the less productive sector,” said the minister.
