Reform of agricultural and fisheries policy and food safety on agenda of Wednesday's Council

Brussels, 25/11/2002 (Agence Europe) - EU ministers responsible for agriculture and fisheries will be meeting on Wednesday and Thursday under the presidency of Mariann Fischer Boel, to begin the last lap of negotiations on reform of Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), which will be conducted together with the tricky subject of reconstitution of cod stocks in the North Sea. The Council will also follow the debate on mid-term review of Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), this time focusing discussion on the so-called horizontal aspects (uncoupling and modulation of direct aid as well as the link between modulation and respect of certain environmental and quality norms). Ministers will, for the first time, have an opportunity to exchange their points of view on the political interpretation of the agricultural decisions taken by the European Council in Brussels and on the consequences on the proposals by Commissioner Franz Fischler. Several dossiers relating to food safety also appear on the agenda: genetically modified foodstuffs, zoonoses, and hygiene rules.

CFP reform: Wednesday will be exclusively devoted to trilateral talks between the Presidency, the Commission and each of the delegations on CFP reform and the measures for reconstituting cod (and hake) stocks. It is not the Presidency's ambition to reach first compromise proposals at this stage. It is expected to simply give an account, the next day, of the results of discussions. According to some sources, the Commission holds the key to making work move forward. Mr Fischler is to present proposals to avoid a moratorium on cod fishing in the North Sea (a moratorium which, scientists say, should be extended to other species such as whiting, haddock and also sole, plaice and saithe), and he alone can make concessions on the problem of public aid to renewal and modernisation of the fleet (we recall that he had earlier hinted during previous Councils that he would agree to exemptions until 2006 for vessels under 12 metres in length, which make up 80% of the Italian, Greek and Portuguese fleet). If the Council is not able to reach an agreement on reform of CFP by the end of the year, the EU will be in a difficult legal situation, mainly with regards renewal of the six-twelve mile rule. (See EUROPE of 22 November, p.15, on the subject of the debate at the European Parliament).

The only progress on reform achieved at the level of the Council group of experts concerns the following points: - multiannual stock management plans: the reconstitution plans would only apply to stocks outside the limits of biological safety and bearing in mind the rate of mortality caused by fishing and the size of the fish population); - access to waters and resources: according to the Council's legal service, the exemptions to the principle of free access to the Irish Box expire at the end of the year (at the same time as the special provisions of the treaty on accession by Spain and Portugal), which, in theory, would allow Spain to fish in the waters off the west coast of Ireland. Ireland is expected to protest violently against what could become a matter of fact; - implementation measures: most Member States would agree to extend satellite surveillance to vessels over 18 metres in length (the Commission proposed 15 metres).

Furthermore, still in the context of CFP reform, Mr Fischler should present the last sections of his proposals to ministers: action plan on the economic and social consequences of restructuring of the sector and possibly two other communications, one on improving scientific opinions and the other defining an action plan on discards.

CAP mid-term review: The Presidency hopes to submit a report to Member States as well as a questionnaire on the Member State positions on the horizontal measures provided for by the Commission in its proposed mid-term review of CAP. Other than possible discussion on the consequences of the decisions of the Heads of State and Government, the Agriculture Ministers are expected to confirm, on this theme, the different positions at the level of the experts of the Special Agriculture Committee (SAC).

- Uncoupling of aid: except for five delegations which approve of the principle - Germany, United Kingdom, Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands - the majority remains opposed to uncoupling (system for single aid to income per farm defined on the basis of historic data) and calls on the Commission to publish an impact study on its economic and social consequences. Several delegations call for information on partial uncoupling (a solution preferred by the European Parliament). It should be noted that, during the last meeting of the SAC, Austria stressed that the conclusions of the European Council on the ceiling of agricultural spending in 2007 to 2013 could not be ignored and that a debate was called for in order to assess the consequences on mid-term review. The Austrian delegation considers uncoupling should not be discussed before 2006.

- Compulsory and gradual modulation: Denmark, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom welcome this project, although some of them would have preferred more detailed reform which entailing savings for the Community budget. This group of countries considers that the system envisaged (3% reduction annually on all direct aid during seven years, but with a franchise of EUR 5,000, the amounts thus made available then being shared out between the Member States for rural development actions) would be too heavy at the administrative level. The United Kingdom repeated that it refused the franchise system. No fewer than eight delegations (Spain, France, Portugal, Greece, Belgium, Ireland, Luxembourg and Austria) are opposed to a generalised and progressive reduction of direct payment, with Austria and Greece also referring to the conclusions of the European Council in Brussels. According to Austria, the proposed direct aid modulation would have become obsolete up to 2006, and no doubt for the following years. We would point out that Ireland, Austria and Finland called for an increase in the level of franchise (to avoid penalising small and medium-sized farms).

- Ecoconditionality or cross-compliance: Most Member States are in favour of the Commission's approach consisting in establishing a link between the granting of full uncoupled income aid and respect of regulatory norms on the environment, food safety, health and animal welfare, as well as the obligations relating to safety at work. Some, however - which is the case of Germany in particular - stress that the system envisaged is financially and administratively too heavy. Germany explained, this being confirmed by the representative of the Commission, that nearly 400 legislative texts should be amended by the introduction of this new principle. Sweden is not in favour as, despite the positive aspects of the system, there will be control and management problems.

Greek national aid: Greek will seek to convince the three Member States (Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark) that do not wish to authorise aid of EUR 90 million to 93,405 of its cotton producers, and to mollify two others (United Kingdom and Germany) that are still hesitant about taking a position.

GMOs: The Presidency hopes to reach a political agreement on the proposal for a new regulation of genetically modified food and feed, through progress made on the main subjects still outstanding (degree of centralisation of authorisation procedure and labelling tolerance thresholds) during the last Coreper meetings. The most political subject concerns the threshold for the accidental presence of GMOs that have nonetheless been assessed as risk-free (GMOs blocked by the moratorium). During Friday's Coreper's meeting, the Presidency suggested fixing a threshold of 0.5% instead of 1% (in its last compromise presented at the last Council: see EUROPE of 14 and 15 October, p.7). The reactions of delegations were positive. The French suggestion (backed by Italy and Belgium) aimed at explicitly excluding from the scope of the regulation crop seeds covered by Directive 2001/18 ("vertical" directive on seeds) poses a problem for the Commission and for several delegations (Germany, Netherlands and Sweden, in particular) which insist that this would do away with the "one door/one key" principle for authorising GMOs. Finally, only three countries - Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom, are still opposed to centralised authorisation procedure as proposed by the Commission.

Zoonoses: The dossier on the proposals on measures to control zoonoses was almost definitively settled during the Coreper meeting on Friday. The political agreement should be confirmed without debate (unless the German delegation, which will be voting against, manages to put the dossier back on the Council table). Qualified majority seems to be acquired, despite opposition from Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and Greece.