I am a lobbyist for LTO in Brussels. Members might be familiar with the IFA's representative in Brussels, Michael Treacy. I am his colleague and his office is located one floor above than mine, probably because he has been there for a long time.
I want to make a contribution regarding the WTO negotiations. I must stress that the coming two months will be extremely important for the entire WTO negotiations and I want to tell members what will happen.
The WTO process has already been extremely long. Mr. Schenk has already informed the committee about market access, aspects of competition and about domestic support. However, the negotiations began with three topics, namely, agriculture, industrial goods and services. Everyone keeps saying there should always be a balance between them. Even Commissioner Mandelson states that there must be a balance between those three areas, as does our Minister.
The negotiations are still devoted exclusively to agriculture and time is running out because the deadline is the end of July. Otherwise, we must wait two or three years. Hence, my prediction as to what will happen is that agriculture will continue to be discussed in the coming weeks and the EU will continue to push for a deal. Subsequently, however, there will not be sufficient time to discuss adequately services and industrial goods, in order that we make sufficient gains on those subjects.
What will we obtain? We will obtain a deal because Commissioner Mandelson definitely wants a deal and it is all he talks about. We will get a deal whereby agriculture will either fall behind or deliver a great deal, particularly regarding market access. However, we will not gain anything on services and industrial goods. Hence, we have spoken to our Minister of Economic Affairs who is negotiating on our behalf and have asked him what he thinks to gain from this agreement. However, his main priority is services and he does not care about agriculture. The way things are going, while the negotiators continue not to care greatly about agriculture, they are also not making gains on services.
Consequently, in the coming months we, as a farming organisation, will be pushed to support our Government and the Commission, particularly Commissioner Fischer Boel. They will assert that without an agreement now, there will be another reform in three or four years' time, when another WTO agreement will be reached. In other words, the absence of agreement now will lead to a worse agreement in three or four years' time. Hence, they are trying to frighten us into giving in to a WTO deal now. They do not, however, discuss what must be conceded for that or what the EU will receive in return, which is a strange way to negotiate. There are three pillars and although one might give way in respect of one pillar without making gains on the other two, one must still have a deal and be happy with it. It appears that this is what will happen. It will only make matters worse.
I also wish to discuss a point which was raised by Mr. Schenk and Ms ten Have, namely, sensitive products. They are also very important to us, particularly pig meat and sugar and some fruit and vegetables. We are lobbying for very hard in respect of them, as well as for beef and butter. These are the points I wanted to stress with regard to the WTO.
Yesterday, the delegation discussed non-trade concerns with the Irish Government. The Minister stated that non-trade concerns are extremely important in the negotiations. We asked her what would happen if the non-trade concerns were not on the agenda or were not part of the WTO negotiations or a deal. Would one lower the standard of animal welfare within the EU? Would one lower the EU's environmental standards? What would one do?
While the Minister will not lower the standards, what will happen then? We come to the situation, already mentioned by Mr. Schenk, whereby goods will be imported from outside and our consumers will buy them. However, we will not be able or allowed to produce in Europe. This means that the whole world will be turned upside down.
We have heard that labelling is under discussion in Ireland. We have some experience with labelling in Holland and, as an exporting country, it is not working for us. We do not have high hopes for a solution to the problem of labelling.