The IFA president Francie Gorman delivered a scathing criticism of the efforts of a handful of frugal EU member states to dominate ongoing EU budget talks in what he termed 'an attempt to bully the EU' into drastically reducing funding levels from what had been proposed by the European Commission.

The IFA president also claimed that Taoiseach Micheál Martin appeared taken aback on Tuesday when informed the Commission’s plans to tighten the CAP's purse strings could leave Co Cork facing a funding hole in excess of €250m over seven years.

“We have the Germans and five or six of the frugals trying to bully the rest of Europe,” Gorman told the Irish Farmers Journal at the National Ploughing Championships on Wednesday.

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“Six states are trying to bully everybody else into major cuts to the total EU budget, but that's unacceptable.”

Gorman’s remarks follow a call from Germany, Sweden, Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands and Finland to slash “several hundreds of billions euros” off the next EU budget as they say EU spending should see the same cost cutting treatment as they have had to carry out on their national budgets.

“We're all pro Europe. We all see the advantages that we've had by being members of the EU, but it doesn't come cheap. So for us, it's going to be about getting that budget up,” the IFA president said.

“I think that you will see additions to it in in in a fairly substantial way before the end of the year, whether it can be enough to table an agreement or not, we don't know.”

Taoiseach’s reaction to cuts

Gorman warned that Ireland’s farmers could suffer a €2.5bn blow if the European Commission’s budget cuts for agriculture proposed last year come to pass and that he believed the full extent of these cuts may have been missed by the Taoiseach.

“It's a loss of €39m a year, €273m in Basic Payments to Co Cork alone over the next seven years of the new CAP policy,” he commented on informing the Taoiseach of the impact it would have of his own county.

“I'd say he realised ‘Jesus, this is a lot worse than I thought’ and if they can't get agreement on a budget that's going to be fit for purpose, they should be brave enough to say we're not going to put a deal in table here.”

Approaching budget day

Gorman also signalled on Wednesday that discussions with Government have left him hopeful that €15m in EU fertiliser crisis funds will be topped up to the maximum extent possible to deliver a scheme worth around €45m to farmers.

“I think we'll see the fertiliser strategy co-funded to the maximum from the discussions we've had,” he said.

“If that doesn't happen, it sends a really, really bad message to the industry at a time when farmers are really struggling.”

The IFA leader called for a reversal of the Budget 2026 decrease of €8/cow and €1.50/ewe in the National Beef Welfare Scheme and National Sheep Welfare Scheme, stating that the cuts to the two drystock schemes are a “red line issue” for the association.