Speaking after today’s Council of Agriculture and Fisheries Council in Brussels, Creed outlined that a strong CAP is vital for employment and environmental sustainability.

“I am confident that the CAP can meet the test of value added, in terms of food security, employment creation and environmental sustainability. It underpins the production of safe high-quality food for 500m people who live in the EU,” he said.

“It is more important than ever, against the background of Brexit, and in the context of global food security issues, that we have a strong, well-financed CAP post 2020,” Creed continued.

Currently, the CAP supports the 173,000 jobs in the agri-food sector in Ireland and is 40% of the total EU budget of €140bn.

Creed criticism of UK

Creed was also highly critical of the UK’s negotiation strategy saying that it was not providing the required certainty in a number of key areas including any traditional arrangements and the customs union.

In an interview with the Irish Examiner, Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed has slammed the UK’s negotiating position in Brexit talks.

“There is no leadership on Brexit. Various ministers talk about hard Brexit, soft Brexit, no deal being better than a bad deal. The worst possible deal is no deal, both for them and for us,” he said. “The lack of any coherence is a huge problem for us” he said.

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