Brussels, 14/02/2000 (Agence Europe) - The Portuguese Presidency has decided to cancel the Agriculture Council session on 21 and 22 February, as the European Commission has not presented its proposal for common agricultural prices for the 2000/2001 marketing year. An initial debate on this proposal should have been the main point on the agenda of the session.
The Commission's delay can be explained by budgetary problems. The Commission is this week beginning its policy debates on the preliminary draft budget for 2001 (beginning with the aspect "redeployment of human resources", see following page) and it cannot propose new prices without knowing what financial resources the CAP will have next year. In order to finance aid to the Balkans, fixed politically at a very high level, the Commission must make savings elsewhere, as the finance ministers are opposed to any increase in the financial perspectives. There is a tendency to look to the agricultural sector for making a substantial part of the savings. In this case, the guidelines of the Berlin Summit provided for increased funding in 2001 for agriculture, by way of 8.5%. The increase will not be made. According to some indications, the directorate general for budgets suggested several cuts in funding through: a reduction in "sugar" quotas; part of the cost of storage for farm produce being borne by Member States; the dismantling of aid to dehydrated fodder; the freeze of consumer promotion programmes; the reduction of credits intended for the free distribution of products to less favoured citizens. These guidelines would have been considered as unacceptable by the directorate general for agriculture.
The Commission must take a decision, and it does not look as though discussions will be easy.