asked the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries if he will make a statement on his discussions in the EEC Council of Ministers this week.
Written Answers. - Agricultural Ministers' Decisions.
152.
At the meeting of the Council of Agricultural Ministers in Brussels on 15th and 16th July, a number of important decisions were taken in relation to beef. These were:
(1) The Council has asked the Commission to suspend immediately until 1st November next imports from all sources of all cattle, beef and veal with the exception of certain quotas to which the Community is committed to import under the GATT. Imports of beef for processing for re-export have been suspended.
(2) Member states may, if they so decide, give aid to recipients of social welfare benefits for the purchase of beef and veal and FEOGA will recoup 50 per cent of the expenditure incurred.
(3) If advertising and publicity campaigns to promote beef consumption are undertaken in member states during the coming 12 months, 50 per cent of the expenditure incurred will be recouped from FEOGA subject to an overall ceiling of approximately £1.4 million for the entire Community.
(4) Member states may, at their own option, grant a premium for orderly marketing of adult bovine animals, excluding cows, slaughtered during the period from 1st August, 1974, to 28th February, 1975. The maximum premium authorised varies monthly, increasing progressively from about £9.20 per head in August to about £32.40 per head in February. FEOGA will contribute from November onwards towards the cost of the premium in each member state at the rate of 50 per cent of the maximum premium authorised for the months of November and December increasing to 60 per cent in January and to 70 per cent in February. FEOGA will make no contribution to the cost of the premium in the months of August, September and October except in the case of Ireland where FEOGA will, exceptionally, make a contribution at the rate of 50 per cent of the maximum premium authorised for each of those months if the UK operates the scheme in those months. Meat of animals in respect of which a premium is paid will not be admitted for offer to an intervention agency. Details of the scheme are to be worked out during the coming weeks.
(5) The Commission proposes to take certain other measures to help the beef market, namely, the sale of intervention beef at reduced prices to non-profit making institutions and organisations, the allocation of quantities of canned beef products from intervention stocks of food aid under the World Food Programme and the intensification of its policy in relation to exports.
In regard to pigmeat the Council agreed to bring forward from 1st November, 1974—probably to 1st October—the increase in the basic price for pig carcases already fixed for the 1974-75 marketing year. The support for publicity and advertising campaigns for beef will include such campaigns for pigmeat and, as in the case of beef, imports of pigmeat for processing for re-export have been suspended. The Council also adopted a recommendation urging member states to reduce where possible the average weight of pig carcases marketed.
Ministers had a general exchange of views on the future sugar policy of the Community but no decisions were reached and the discussion will be resumed at the next meeting of the Council in September.
I made a request to the Council to change, for the purposes of the Common Agricultural Policy, the representative rate for the Irish pound. This request will now be examined by the Commission within whose competence rests the responsibility for making the necessary proposal to the Council in the matter.
In addition the Council had a brief discussion on the effects of the energy crisis on agriculture and adopted certain decisions in the wine sector.