Brussels, 19/01/2009 (Agence Europe) - In Brussels on Monday 19 January, the Council of Ministers adopted without debate the four legislative acts (three regulations and a decision) on the "health check" on the common agricultural policy (CAP). The agriculture ministers of the member states of the EU reached a political agreement on this dossier on 20 November last year (see EUROPE 9787 of 21 November 2008).
The Council adopted this package by qualified majority: - the Estonian and Slovakian delegations voted against the four regulations; - the Latvian delegation voted against the regulation on the "direct support regime" and against the regulation and decision rule development; - the Czech delegation abstained. In addition, there were declarations by the Commission and/or Council, and from Belgium, Italy, Latvia and Portugal.
These negotiations on the health check of the CAP led, amongst other things, to: - the continued total decoupling of support to farmers (only the suckler cow premium and premiums for sheep and goats will remain coupled); - removing the obligation to set aside 10% of land; - a gradual increase, by 1% per annum, of milk quotas before they are removed in 2015 (Italy has been authorised to increase its quota by 5% in one go, from the season 2009/2010); - the increase in the rate of modulation of aid (reduction of aid to increase the funds available for rural development) by 5% today, up to 10% by 2012 (plus an additional reduction of 4% to be applied to payments of over €300,000 per annum). On market measures, which have been greatly limited, the decisions of the Council will translate into a removal of the intervention for pork meat and setting at zero intervention purchases for barley and sorghum. For wheat, intervention purchases will be possible during the intervention period at a price of €101.31 per tonne up to a maximum of 3 million tonnes, above which tenders will be required. For butter and powdered skimmed milk, intervention limits will be set at 30,000 tonnes and 109,000 tonnes respectively, above which intervention will be carried out by means of tenders. (L.C./transl.fl)