Brussels, 22/02/2013 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 25 February, the Agriculture Ministers of the member states of the EU will debate the proposal of the Irish Presidency of the Council of the EU on base payments, particularly the details of internal convergence. In order to reach a compromise, Ireland has built several elements of flexibility into the European Commission's initial proposal. Ministers will also discuss the mechanism for the publication of beneficiaries of aid under the common agriculture policy (CAP) and the horsemeat scandal.
On 25 February, Ireland, which currently holds the Presidency of the Council, will present the Agriculture Committee with a compromise on base payments in the framework of the regulation on direct payments, which brings in many elements of flexibility, particularly for internal convergence. The Commission proposes that the member states achieve a uniform level of direct payments at regional or national level by 2019. In order to secure the Council's support over this highly sensitive dossier, Ireland wishes to leave the member states as much leeway as possible to engage the internal convergence of direct payments desired by the European Commission. These new provisions went down fairly well with experts of the member states, who were presented with the document at the Special Committee on Agriculture (SCA) of 18 February (see EUROPE 10791).
The Irish draft first of all suggests allowing the member states to limit new hectares eligible for direct payments, in order to ensure that the aid is not watered down too much. It would also be possible, as called for by France and Italy, to exclude wine-making area from the single payments rights system. It is also proposed that internal convergence does not have to be complete at the end of the budgetary period, with the member states left the option to lay down upper and lower limits for aid per hectare at national or regional level.
The Presidency also suggests that a member state be able to take account of the level of production in holdings when setting the pace of convergence, in order to speed up this process, particularly for farmers with little or no production. Lastly, the Irish Presidency has adopted the French proposal to allow the member states to put an additional premium on farms' first hectares.
At this Council, the EU27 will also be informed by the legal services of the Council about the mechanism for publishing beneficiaries of aid under the CAP, proposed by the European Commission further to the Court of Justice's invalidation of the first regulation. During a debate, the ministers will be called upon to give their opinions on these transparency measures.
To finish off, the Council will also provide the ministers with the opportunity to discuss the horsemeat scandal (see EUROPE 10790). The Commission will take stock of the situation as regards food products containing horsemeat referred to on the label as beef. Following the discovery, in January, of the presence of traces of horsemeat in beefburgers in Ireland, several other member states have found horsemeat in a range of processed products made from beef. The implementation of highly specific tests has revealed what appears to be large-scale fraud and the incorrect labelling of certain processed products, which have caused consumers to be misled. On 13 February, the Commission presented a programme of tests designed to assess the scale on which horsemeat is used in beef products. The conditions under which the tests are to be carried out were defined in greater detail at an extraordinary meeting of the Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health, on 15 February (see EUROPE no. 10787) (LC/transl.fl)