Independent MEP Marian Harkin who attended the briefing session with the Agriculture Commissioner expresses her opinion.

EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel in a meeting with members of the Liberals and Democrats Group of the European Parliament has suggested that UK Prime Minister Tony Blair may not be fully aware of the extent  of the C.A.P. reform measures which encompass concessions in the W.T.O. negotiations.

This opinion was expressed today, Monday, October 31st by Independent MEP Marian Harkin who attended the briefing session with the Agriculture Commissioner.

Commissioner Fischer Boel was speaking in the context of the overtures made by European commission President Barrosso to the UK Prime Minister in which he proposed the transfer of modulation funds from agriculture to rural development projects.  “Ms. Fisher Boel said that she was not sure if Mr. Blair was fully aware of the depth of concessions already made in seeking a WTO agreement and, if this is true, his former colleague Mr. Peter Mandelson is hardly under any pressure from that direction to hold fast against further concessions on agricultural product tariffs”, the Independent MEP said.

The EU Agriculture Commissioner had assured the ALDE Group that the Common Agriculture Policy would remain at least to 2013, Marian Harkin said.  “However she did say that there would be a ‘health check’ half way through the next  programme period and this  would happen in the context of a CAP actually costing less each year even if Romania and Bulgaria are added into the equation”, she said.

Ms. Fishcer Boel had stressed that support for agriculture through the CAP required a budget that was considerably less than that needed to fund the defence budgets of EU countries, Marian Harkin said.  “She also believes that Peter Mandelson has not exceeded his mandate at this time and we can only hope that this will remain the case despite the continued pressure from the USA and others to open up unacceptable access to the EU market for food products”, the Independent MEP said.

“It is also to be hoped that if Mr. Blair, as President of the EU Council, is not fully aware of concessions made to date that Ms. Fischer Boel and others will act decisively to inform him that it is not acceptable for him or Peter Mandelson to sacrifice the farmers of the EU to fulfil any cheap food ideology”, Marian Harkin said.