Ireland’s farmers and the Irish food industry were being sabotaged by EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson who appeared to have only British industrial interests at heart in WTO negotiations.

This was stated by Independent MEP Marian Harkin when she strongly supported the criticism levelled at Commissioner Mandelson by IFA President Padraic Walsh.  “I have for some time been questioning Mandelson’s tactics and his willingness to exceed his mandate as far as agriculture is concerned and I hope the Commissioner will receive a clear message on this issue on his upcoming visit to Dublin”, she said.

Referring to meetings she had organised for the Irish Farmers Association in Washington with the Chairman of the US Senate and House of Representatives Agriculture Committees, Marian Harkin said that it was obvious that American farm interests were not trying to put European farmers out of business.  “The Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee Colin Petersen specifically said that they were ‘not trying to stick it to EU farmers, while he and Senator Harkin were clearly on the side of family farming rather than serving the interests of corporate farming or multi-national companies”, she said.

Marian Harkin was strong in her praise of the IFA representatives whose knowledge and arguments clearly impressed the influential US politicians, she said.  “Both of these men, whose main objective is delivering a good Farm Bill for their own farmers, expressed the hope that they might visit Ireland this year or send their representatives to evaluate in particular how the REPS scheme is operating and the relevance of such a scheme to future US farm policy”, Marian Harkin said.