We challenge the anti-CAP, anti-farmer whispering campaign
An unholy coalition of so-called environmental lobbyists, giant food conglomerates and self-appointed experts have started to spin the lie that CAP is unnecessary and wasteful.
All these lobby groups have in common is an irrational hatred of a system that offers European farmers a subsistence income to be derived from their farm holdings.
By repeating falsehoods often enough, these groups seek to convince the EU to renege on its most solemn undertaking to the union's own farmers.
ICMSA will resist to its utmost any attempt by any group to seek to make CAP the scapegoat for the perceived policy failures of the EU.
The farmers of Cork and Ireland know what it is to be made the scapegoats in a national context; they have absolutely no intention of allowing themselves to be blamed for the doubts that now assail the idea of a united Europe.
At a meeting of the National Forum for Europe in Dublin on June 30, I asked Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the EU commission, to respond to a few questions on behalf of ICMSA and the rural dwellers of Ireland.
I put my questions in context by pointing out that the EU budget for agriculture represents just 0.4 per cent of total income (GDP) of all the member states.
I reminded Mr Barroso of the political commitment reached in 2002 regarding funding for the reformed CAP.
Given those facts, I asked him to answer the following questions:
1. How can farmers and rural dwellers continue to have confidence in the EU if it continuously demands reform of the CAP with huge costs to farm families and then renege on the spending commitments given?
2. The EU have proposed to take €6 billion away from the farm budget agreed in 2002 to fund the accession of Romania and Bulgaria. In effect, this amounts to a 2% income levy on all EU farmers up to 2013. Is this justified?
3. In view of the fact that the agriculture budget, which clearly has a regional dimension, and the regional aid budget, account for 75% of the total EU budget (farm budget 45%, regional aid budget 30%), would the president not agree that this is a bare minimum required to prevent rural and regional decline that would be to the detriment of the overall EU?
4. In the light of the above, could the president give an assurance now that the solemn political commitments given in 2002 on the funding of CAP up to 2013 will be fully honoured without any deductions for proposed EU enlargement or otherwise?
In reply, Mr Barroso gave the most categoric and emphatic answer that the farmers of Ireland could have hoped for.
He confirmed that there was no possibility whatsoever of his approving a reopening of the agreement on CAP signed by all the member states in 2002. He said that even the possibility of this was desperately unfair on farmers who were already suffering from plummeting incomes.
ICMSA will hold Mr Barroso to his word.
We welcome his statement of intent to honour the commission's undertaking reached as recently as three years ago but, with or without his support, we intend to confront this anti-farmer and anti-rural whispering campaign at every opportunity.
We will not permit any party to this solemn agreement now to attempt to weasel out of their obligations.
ICMSA looks to the farmers of Cork for their help in this regard.
We have looked before and it has always been forthcoming. It is needed again. Because if CAP is dismantled, then the death-knell of Irish farming has been sounded.
Pat O'Rourke
President
ICMSA
John Feely House
Dublin Road
Limerick.
