Irish farmers attack Blair over threat to EU agriculture spending

BRITISH Prime Minister Tony Blair is to be directly asked by the Irish Farmers Association (IFA) to remove his threat to the financing of the Common Agricultural Policy in the European Union.

IFA leader John Dillon will formally make the request to Mr Blair in a letter that he will hand over to British Ambassador Stewart Eldon in Dublin on Wednesday.

Mr Dillon said he is concerned and dismayed at Mr Blair’s unwarranted criticism of the EU farm and rural policies during the financial perspectives negotiations at the recent European Council meeting in Brussels.

He also said it was disingenuous of the British Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown to blame EU agriculture spending for the stagnation of the mainland European economies.

Mr Dillon said the EU heads of Government, including the British, agreed in 2002 to fix the CAP budget to 2013 while the budget for the EU-25 was fixed at a level no higher than previously applying to the EU-15.

When the Luxembourg CAP reform took place in 2003, the then EU Agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler and the Council of Ministers promised farmers a period of stability and budget security.

“It is very misleading of Mr Blair to portray the CAP budget as being so large it deprives other important areas such as science and technology of an adequate share of public expenditure. The reality of course is that the EU budget relative to the national budgets of member states is very small - only €2.40 of every €100 of public expenditure in the EU is allocated through the central EU budget.

“In the 25 member states, all the major areas of public expenditure - health, social welfare, education, research, infrastructure, defence and security - are the responsibilities of national exchequers.”

Mr Dillon said less than 1% of total public expenditure in the EU goes to support agriculture. This is a very small price to ensure food price stability for Europe’s 450 million people, and to provide guarantees to consumers in relation to quality, traceability and environmental protection. It is totally unacceptable to Irish farmers that the CAP budget decision and the commitments of 2002 would now be undermined. For their part, farmers are making the required adjustments including the major switch to decoupled CAP payments,” he said.

Mr Dillon said honesty and integrity are at stake. Political leaders who make commitments and then seek to break these commitments are guilty of a breach of contract with the people concerned.

Pointing out that Mr Blair was one of the heads of government who made the 2002 budget agreement, he said the leader must honour that decision.