'The cake is not getting bigger': EU commissioner warns on farm funding

The EU agriculture commissioner Christophe Hansen noted that CAP budgets are based on 'promised and expected contributions from the different member states'. File picture: Finbarr O'Rourke

The EU agriculture commissioner has warned that farmers face receiving smaller allocations of a larger European budget as “the cake is not getting bigger”.

Christophe Hansen said that while farming organisations may continue to ask for more money in the EU budget for the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP), smaller allocations from member states could hinder these requests.

Mr Hansen was speaking while attending the National Ploughing Championships in Screggan, Co Offaly, with agriculture minister Martin Heydon and Irish commissioner Michael McGrath.

Negotiations for the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), the long-term EU budget, are ongoing. Mr McGrath said they will be “tough because of all of the competing priorities”.

The Irish Farmers Association (IFA) has warned that Ireland is set to lose over €2.5bn from the CAP budget, a cut of 24%. Under the current MFF, €336bn is allocated to CAP.

Mr Hansen noted that budgets are based on “promised and expected contributions from the different member states”.

He said:

If the cake is not getting bigger [from] what the member states will be contributing, it is difficult to distribute more.

“Of course, we are at the beginning of a discussion. There is [sic] sufficient funds currently proposed.”

Mr Hansen said that while he acknowledges that farming groups and agriculture ministers will ask for more money, heads of state and EU member countries must decide what they contribute to the EU pot, and this will determine how much of the budget will be allocated to agriculture, and how much will then in turn be spent on CAP funding.

When asked if a €500bn CAP budget is possible under the negotiations, Mr Hansen said he would be the “luckiest man in the farming sector” if that happened. “I would be lucky, but we have to be real,” he said.

“If we get this around €400bn for the farming sector for the future, which would be a big achievement. The farmers can count on me that I will be as well their best advocate for their cause.”

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Mr Heydon acknowledged that the current proposal of cutting CAP by 24% would be “devastating for Irish agriculture”.

He said that while there are increased demands for defence and security budgets, food security must be an “integral part of that discussion”.

He noted that hunger is the “biggest cause of conflict in the world” and the work done by farmers to deliver food security cannot be “taken for granted”.

• Louise Burne, political correspondent