Brussels, 16/03/2006 (Agence Europe) - Agriculture Ministers of EU Member States, who will be meeting in Brussels on Monday 20 March under the presidency of Josef Pröll of Austria, are to discuss the possibility of Community support for the poultry sector that has been severely affected by the adverse effect that the spread of avian flu has had on consumer demand. They will also discuss implementation of the reform decided in 2003 relating to Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), at the initiative of countries presenting a memorandum on the subject (EUROPE 9152). Ministers will adopt new rules at Community level on the protection of designations of origin conferred upon a number of agricultural products. Also, the Commission will brief the Council on the way talks at the WTO are developing after the unproductive G-6 (EU, USA, Brazil, India, Australia and Japan) meeting on 10 March (EUROPE 9150).
Avian influenza: At the request of an ever growing number of Member States, Mariann Fischer Boel, Agriculture Commissioner, may announce new Community measures to help the European poultry industry, whose sales have been plummeting since the outbreak of bird flu in the EU. A further rise in poultry export refunds was decided during the management committee on 8 March, which increases from 30 to 40 euros/100 kg for whole frozen chickens and from 10 to 20 euros/100 kg for chicken portions. The Commission is willing to foresee new support such as aid to private storage or Community repurchasing of stocks. However, the creation of such measures could take time as it requires revision of the common organisation rules for the poultry meat sector (European Parliament consultation). Also, the Commission agrees to launch information campaigns to make it known that there is no risk involved when eating well-cooked poultry meat.
Commissioner for Consumer Protection Markos Kyprianou will take stock of the way the H5N1 virus is spreading through Europe (and in the world).
Designations of origin: The Council is expected to adopt two regulations aimed at clarifying and simplifying the rules governing Protected Geographical Indications (PGI), Protected Designations of Origin (PDI) and Guaranteed Traditional Speciality (GTS) (EUROPE 9102). Two reasons have pushed the Community to suggest changes to the 1992 regulations: - to simply registration procedure; - and to make the regulation on PGI and PDI compatible with relevant international agreements, especially the agreement on TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) and the GATT agreement of 1994. A WTO panel issued the verdict in April 2005 (after complaints filed by the US and Australia) that the Community regime was not entirely compatible with the provisions of these agreements (EUROPE 8910). The time allowed for carrying out the WTO's decision expires in April 2006. The provisions added by the 2003 regulation on the arrangements for third country access, embodying the principles of criteria equivalency, reciprocity and comparability of controls are withdrawn from the proposal and replaced by simplified procedure. A third country may file a request with the Commission for registration, on condition that the geographical indication or designation of origin is also protected by that country. The wording of provisions relating to control has also become more flexible.
WTO negotiations: After the important stage of the Hong Kong ministerial conference (13-18 December), WTO negotiations have again entered an active phase. According to the timetable, the negotiation on agricultural terms should be concluded at the end of April. At the request of the United States, the G-6 will meet again early April in New York to seek to move forward with talks. Given the forthcoming deadlines, the agriculture ministers of thirteen EU countries (including France, Spain, Italy, Greece, Ireland, Finland, Poland and Hungary) sent a paper to Ms Fischer Boel on 9 March, in which they state their concerns and expectations regarding a number of subjects on the negotiating table (EUROPE will come back to this in a later issue). They stress the need to ensure export refunds are eliminated at a reasonable rate and to obtain true parallelism on the part of EU partners in the field of export subsidies. They consider that the margins of manoeuvre are now all used up on market access and internal support and recall the importance, for the EU, of obtaining concrete results on geographical indications. The document states that, to offset the very substantial effort on agriculture that it has already made, the EU is entitled to expect that its partners do their bit along this road also.
Sustainable development: As in other Council formations (Environment on 9 March, Transport on 27 and 28 March 2006, General Affairs 10 April 2006, Ecofin 5 May 2006 …), European farm ministers will hold a policy debate on EU sustainable development strategy (SDS). In the light of these discussions, the Austrian EU Presidency will present a report on revised EU strategy, to be adopted by the European Council during its June meeting.