EU unhappy with Mercosur offer

By Eric Donald

Efforts to reach a trade deal between the EU and the Mercosur countries appear to be running into difficulty. An offer tabled by the Mercosur countries last week has disappointed the EU negotiators because of its lack of ambition. In fact in some areas the written offer was less than earlier verbal understanding.

As we went to press (Wednesday), the EU were due to give a formal written response. Irish farmers' concerns centre around the possibility of the EU offering increased access for beef imports from these Mercosur countries. The fear is that the quantity might be increased to 160,000 tonnes.

However, some sources suggest that the Mercosur negotiators are not interested in concluding a deal at the moment, preferring to wait until Commissioners Mandelson and Fischer Boel take over from Pascal Lamy and Franz Fischler.

EU clarifies issues on National Reserve of entitlements

The Department of Agriculture has been told by the EU that it cannot restrict farmer applications to the National Reserve of payment entitlements by setting objective criteria.

Recent meetings of the Single Payment Advisory Committee have been discussing possible criteria which would give preferential allocation of entitlements to, for example, younger farmers and farmers without significant off-farm income.

The EU has signalled that member states must allow all eligible farmers apply to the reserve and said that objective criteria can subsequently be used to decide on levels of allocation to successful applicants.

The Department has already indicated that it intends to invite any farmer who feels they may be eligible for the reserve to apply.