Brussels, 28/11/2008 (Agence Europe) - EU agriculture ministers, meeting on Friday 28 November in Brussels, were divided over the proposed strengthening of the programme for the distribution of food to the poorest in the EU. A group of countries with minority blocking (Germany, United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark, Czech Republic) objected to the European Commission's proposal more often than not for legal reasons but also on political grounds. The other member states supported the objective of the proposal, although some (Slovenia, Finland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Malta, Slovakia, Latvia, Greece, Lithuania and Hungary) were against introducing national co-financing as the European Commission had advocated. It will be up the future Czech EU Presidency to successfully complete work on this dossier during the first half of the year 2009. The European Parliament is to give its opinion in March 2009.
The legal department of the EU Council of Ministers has unintentionally complicated negotiation on the continuation of the food aid programme to the EU's poorest. In its opinion, it states that Article 37 of the EC Treaty is not a valid legal base for the proposal in question, as its aim and its content are not of an agricultural kind but of a social kind. It advises using Article 308 of the EC Treaty. The Commission's legal service for its part considers Article 37 of the EC Treaty is an appropriate legal base.
“I think we shall not decide on a legal plan but rather a political plan. Do we want to maintain a European food aid programme for the poorest European citizens?”, said Michel Barnier, French minister, who called on everyone to shoulder their responsibilities. Mariann Fischer Boel, Agriculture Commissioner, does not at all agree with the Council's legal advice, considering that the CAP has shown it already has an “undeniable” social dimension. To those who claim that the programme has no reason to be there as there are neither stocks nor intervention tools, she replied that intervention will continue as a safety net and that there will be periods when intervention may continue to be used. She also defended her proposal to introduce a share of co-financing by the countries themselves, so that the governments take on more responsibility with regard to management and funds are “adequate for the needs that they are to satisfy”. During a press conference, she described the legal wrangling over this proposal as “absurd”.
The context has changed and the programme has therefore lost its agricultural dimension, said the German delegation, which supported the opinion of the Council's legal service on the social nature of the action. “The Commission must withdraw its proposal”, Germany says. “Like Germany, we are convinced the proposal is a social and not an agricultural measure”, said Huw Irranca-Davies, British Secretary of State for Rural Affairs. Valeri Tsvetanov, of Bulgaria, said on the contrary that this programme meets the aims of the CAP. “Reducing CAP to its agricultural dimension alone would be to betray it”, he maintained. Italy hopes the modernised programme will be implemented as quickly as possible, and Marek Sawicki of Poland recommended “leaving legal quarrels to one side”. (L.C./transl.jl)