Vol. 494 No. 4
80 Mr. Penrose asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food if he will outline his response to the Agenda 2000 proposals; the plans, if any, he has to convene a national forum on agriculture to enable an appropriate national response to be formulated; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18696/98]
The Commission's detailed proposals for the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy were published on 18 March 1998. A special meeting of the Council of Ministers was convened on 31 March 1998 to enable Ministers to put forward their initial reactions of the proposals. At that meeting the Minister, Deputy Walsh, informed the Commissioner and his colleagues in the Council of the economic significance of the Irish interests that would be affected by the proposals and told them the proposals were seriously damaging to Irish agriculture and the Irish economy and that, consequently, Ireland rejected them in their present form.
A preliminary technical examination of the proposals was carried out over the following two months and the proposals were again discussed at a meeting of the Council of Ministers on 25-26 May, when a progress report was prepared for the European Council in Cardiff on 15-16 June. The report contained an undertaking that the dependence of the particular member states on specific sectors would be taken into account. That undertaking was in response to the Minister's request that the importance of beef and milk to the Irish economy should be acknowledged. The report included, also at the Minister's request, a recognition of the need to avoid renationalisation of the CAP and distortion of competition.
These commitments were copperfastened by the Taoiseach at the European Council in Cardiff when the 15 Heads of Government agreed that further negotiations should be based on the conclusions reached by the May Council.
The European Council set the objective of achieving final adoption of the overall Agenda 2000 proposals before the next European Parliament elections in June 1999 and specified that substantial progress should be made at the Vienna European Council on 11-12 December 1998 on the key elements of the package so that political agreement could be reached on the package as a whole no later than March 1999.
Technical examination of the proposals is continuing in preparation for the meetings of the Council of Ministers in October and November. It is expected that the November meeting will make a further report to the European Council meeting to be held in Vienna on 11-12 December.
Additional information
In October 1997 I set up four consultative groups, one each for beef, milk, cereals and rural development and structures, to ensure that a wide range of expertise would be available to me throughout the negotiations. These groups, which include farmers, processors and others with a direct interest, academics and officials of my Department, have been meeting regularly to discuss the proposals and advise on the appropriate response. In addition, on 9 July 1998 I convened a seminar bringing together the members of all the groups. The purpose of the seminar was to facilitate the work of the four groups by ensuring that each of them was aware of the situation in the other three groups and providing for an all-round exchange of views. The consultative process is, in effect, a national forum and its successful operation to date indicates that no other type of forum is necessary.
I thank the Minister for his very informative reply. Have we conducted any studies to analyse the impact of this on our national agrifood industry? Have we set up a forum to do that? How is this consultative forum working? Does it include members of all the various sectoral interests which would be affected by the proposed CAP reforms and the Agenda 2000 document?
Will the Minister agree that time is running out and that the Agenda 2000 proposals represent a major change in the CAP formulation? Will he agree that the basic thrust of those proposals, as they are currently formulated, is to position the EU for the liberalisation of trade which will be the focus of the next world trade round?
A document has recently emanated from DGVI in Brussels which gives an insight into the current thinking in this regard. Have the Minister and his officials formulated a response to that?
The beef industry is currently undergoing severe trauma. Has the Department proposed any responses to the various exclusions which were very evident in relation to the MacSharry proposals? I instance the beef heifer area. Will a heifer premium per se be proposed? Has the Minister responded to the major increase of £175 in the bull premium, while the increase in the suckler cow premium was a miserable £6? Have we formulated a detailed response or when will we formulate such a response? Will the House debate the matter prior to the submission of proposals on the Agenda 2000 document?
Four consultative groups were set up, one each for beef, milk, cereals, and rural development and structures, to ensure a wide range of expertise would be available throughout the negotiations. These groups include farmers, processors and others with a direct interest, including academics and officials of the Department, and they meet regularly to discuss the proposals and advise the appropriate response. In addition, the seminar on 9 June brought together members of all those groups, in order to facilitate the working of the four groups and to ensure each was aware of the position in the other three, thus providing an all-round exchange of views. This consultative process is working well and it is felt there is no need for another forum to be involved.
We are, of course, extremely adversely affected by the new proposals, particularly by the reduction of beef and dairy premia to create the national envelopes, the reduction of the main premium ceiling and of the suckler cow premium ceiling, and the abolition of the suckler cow supplementary payment and of intervention before price reduction.
