Brussels, 25/04/2007 (Agence Europe) - EU farm ministers are bracing themselves for tough talks at their meeting in Brussels on 7-8 May over the plan to phase out maize aid. The German presidency's draft deal foresees scrapping all public purchases of maize in the 2009/2010 marketing year but there is not yet a qualified majority of member states in favour of the compromise, as was seen at the 23 April special agriculture committee (SAC) talks. The European Commission initially suggested scrapping maize aid in the 2007 marketing year (see EUROPE 9329).
At the last SAC meeting, the German presidency presented member states with a three-stage 'soft landing' compromise deal for phasing out maize aid: The official decision to get rid of public purchases for maize is not set to be taken immediately. It will be examined at the “bill of health” of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), scheduled for 2008, at the same time as a broader debate on the various market measures in force in the cereals sector.
The German presidency has nonetheless put forward a modified proposal, which suggests that intervention on maize should be limited from the marketing season 2007/2008, that this threshold be reduced for the following marketing season and set at zero in 2009/2010. The intervention would not be definitively dead and buried. It could continue to play a “safety net” role, in case of market crisis. The text does indeed specify that the Commission would be able to propose to the management committee that intervention be brought back temporarily in case of “exceptional circumstances”.
The Member States acknowledge the efforts made by the Presidency to find a compromise solution to this problem of large volumes of maize stocked under intervention. Removing intervention in 2009 was rejected by the major countries in question, which are Hungary and Austria. Romania is prepared to agree to it, on the condition that the intervention ceiling is set at 1.5 million tonnes in 2007. The Czech Republic may also come on board with this, but it all depends on how it is to be divided up, which has still to be decided upon for authorised intervention volumes. Other member states, including France, Greece, Poland and Slovakia, spoke out against abandoning intervention on maize, but mainly for political reasons. They reject any decision of this kind before the result of the deliberations at the Council on the CAP bill of health. Lastly, certain countries in the “liberal” camp, such as the United Kingdom and Denmark, do not wish even a temporary keeping in place of intervention for maize to be written down so visibly. They would prefer to see the measure removed after 2007. The other countries are more or less able to go along with the compromise of the German presidency - these include Sweden, Finland, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands. France, Poland, Greece, Austria, Hungary and the United Kingdom constitute a blocking minority, but for different reasons.
The German presidency has pledged to do all in its power, at the Council and the Parliament, to reach a compromise leading to a ceiling of zero from 2009 and beyond. The timetable will be very hard to respect (July 2007, to allow the sector to adapt), particularly as the EP may decide to send the dossier back to the committee on agriculture, even though its opinion is vital before the proposal is adopted at the Council. The Parliamentary committee on agriculture took position, on 12 April, to withdraw the controversial Commission proposal to abolish intervention for maize as of the next marketing season (EUROPE 9405). (lc)