Brussels, 02/04/2003 (Agence Europe) - The Ministers of Agriculture and Fisheries of the Member States of the EU, who are meeting in Luxembourg on Tuesday under the chairmanship of Georgios Dryos, will hold a long discussion on the most controversial aspect of the proposed reform of the CAP, the strategy of decoupling direct aid, which remains criticised by most Member States. On dossiers under Commissioner David Byrne's jurisdiction, the Council will hold a guideline debate on various questions raised by the Greek Presidency relating to the proposed measures to tackle Foot and Mouth, and will take note of progress made in the dossier on official controls on agricultural products.
The most important fishing-related subjects concern changes to be made to provisional measures (taken at last December's Council) for rebuilding cod stocks, and the proposal on the new fishing effort regime in western waters, taking into account the expiry, on 31 December, of provisions on access to resources under the Accession Act for Spain and Portugal. Furthermore, the Council will adopt without debate proposals on measures regulating the ethyl alcohol market, and on new rules for protecting the denominations of agricultural products (see EUROPE of Wednesday 2 April).
Here is a summary of the points of the agenda of this Council:
- CAP Reform: The Greek Presidency has submitted a questionnaire to the Ministers of the decoupling of direct aid and dried fodder aid. These are the last subjects that have not yet been discussed in depth at political level. There will then be two Council meetings left to arrive at a global agreement on reform of the CAP in June, according to commitments taken by the Greek Presidency and the Commission.
On the subject of decoupling of aid, the discussions that took place on 24 and 25 March in the Special Agriculture Committee revealed that ten Member States have serious misgivings about the model put forward by the Commission. Five Member States, on the other hand, have favourably received the Commission's proposal, but with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Denmark, the United Kingdom and Sweden have lent their support to the Commission's proposals, whereas Germany and the Netherlands, who support them in principle, are a lot more cautious. Germany announced its preference for decoupling to be introduced gradually, and to apply only to certain sectors (parital decoupling). Other Member States, who oppose the total decoupling proposed, have said they would be in favour of partial decoupling. This is particularly so of Italy (which would like to see durum wheat and slaughter premiums in the beef sector excluded from this mechanism), Spain, and Portugal. The Commission has even acknowleged that it is highly likely that partial decoupling (which is also supported by Parliament) will end up being applied as part of a global compromise. SAC experts have also raised various technical questions on the decoupling proposal which the Commission should take into account (such as the choice of reference period for calcualting the single payment, the national reserve sums for farmers who are not covered by the reference period, the rules for set-aside…).
Concerning dried fodder, the Commission is proposing to replace the two current aid categories in the sector (68.83 euros per tonne for mechanically-dried dehydrated fodder, and 38.64 euros per tonne for sun-dried fodder) with one single payment. The Commission proposes merging the two aids into one, which will be redistributed among producers in the sector, and phased out from 2004/05 to 2007/08. The Commission is proposing this reform due to: - the environmental damage caused by the fossil fuels currently used to dry fodder; - the imbalance between the two types of production (more fodder is dried mechanically than by the sun); - and the need to support the producer rather than the product. France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Austria and, in particular, Ireland are opposed to the proposed measures, as they feel that dried fodder is less of a pollutant since use of natural fuels (biomass), and that it is vital to produce fodder for cattle feed as the Community is dependant on imports of vegetable protein.
The Council is also to discuss the following proposals; - getting rid of production refunds for starch and certain derived products (opposed by France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany); - partial decoupling of aid to potato starch production (reservations entered by France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands and Finland); - aid to energy farmers (biodiesel, bioethanol…) holding a contract with a processor (Ireland, Belgium and France feel the premium amount is insufficient incentive to producers, and France plus Finland and the United Kingdom would like other crops to be eligible).
- Italy's state aid: Italy will ask the Council once again for permisson to grant national and regional aid of almost 200 million euros to members of bankrupt farmers' collectivities who had committed their personal and family possessions as loan security. This subject was not raised at the last Agriculture Council (see EUROPE of 15 March 2003, p.3).
- Official checks and the fight against Foot and Mouth: the Presidency will present to the Council a stage report on progress made in the working group responsible for the proposal laying down organisation rules for the official checks on animal-origin products for human consumption (see EUROPE of 24 July 2002 on the Commission's proposal).
This paper, which forms part of the "hygene package", is stll being discussed at a technical level with regard to: demands for carcas identification; import procedures; ban on all living animals from abatoirs; the inspections carried out by auxiliary vets in abatoirs. The Presidency is seeking a political agreement from the Agriculture Council on the case in May 2003 in view of reaching a common position on the whole hygene package at the June Council.
The Presidency will draw up a balance sheet of the work carried out by the competent Council work groups on the proposal to set up measures for fighting against foot and mouth disease (adopted three months ago by the Commission, see EUROPE 19 December 2002) and will propose an orientation debate on two issues: preliminary recognition, by the main trade partners, change of policy envisage by the EU; the possibility of expanding the field of application of the Veterinary Fund to compensate lost income from products in cases of cattle vaccination (supported by Spain, Portugal, Balgium and Denmark).
Fishing: Commissioner Franz Fischler will present his proposal for amending proviasional cod stock replenishment measures, which sould be adopted on Thursday. Ministers will have a political debate on a proposal to eliminate all discrimination between Member States founded on nationality, while avoiding any increase in fishing effort (see EUROPE 20 December 2002). This case remains blocked due to significant divergences between Spain and Ireland (the latter wants the "Irish Box" restrictions to be maintained). The Council will also adopt conclusions summing up the Commission proposal on reducing fish rejects (see EUROPE 27 November).