Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 6 Oct 1998

Vol. 494 No. 4

Written Answers. - Common Agricultural Policy.

Proinsias De Rossa

Question:

92 Proinsias De Rossa asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food if he will make a statement on the position of the negotiations on proposals from the EU Commission for reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy. [18411/98]

Minister for Agriculture and Food (Mr. Walsh)

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 to the proposals. At that meeting, I informed the Commissioner and my colleagues in the Council of the economic significance of the Irish interests that would be affected by the proposals and told them that 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 particular member states on specific sectors would be taken into account. That undertaking was in response to my request that the importance of beef and milk to the Irish economy should be acknowledged. The report included, also at my request, a recognition of the need to avoid renationalisaltion 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.