Farmers will be “watching like hawks” the performance of the Irish delegation at Thursday’s crunch EU budget talks in Brussels, according to Irish Creamery and Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA) president Pat McCormack.

An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar will head up the Irish negotiating team as efforts to form a new government continue.

Defence

McCormack said: “Whether in Government or in opposition, we have every right to expect our politicians and representatives to defend a properly funded CAP and that means, at the very least, maintaining current funding and in as close to the current ratio of Pillar I to Pillar II as possible.”

He said all EU member states should be willing to increase their contribution to the EU budget, similar to Ireland, to make up the deficiency following the departure of the UK.

Failure to do so would “vindicate” the Brexiteer argument and will encourage other ‘exit’ campaigns across the EU, he said.

Switch

A push to switch funds from direct payments to rural development schemes, along with a reported desire of the European Commission to earmark 25% of the budget to climate change, should set alarms bells ringing the loudest, according to McCormack.

“What we have here – however it is dressed-up – is a policy of making the farmers pay for the so-called ‘just transition’.

“What president von der Leyen is actually saying is that the same farmers who paid through decades of falling margins and unfair practices … must now pay for the ‘just transition’ to carbon-neutrality and thus ‘carry the can’ for everyone again.”

Votes

McCormack said the ICMSA would not tolerate such a move and called on farmers to make “their own just transition” away from politicians who sought to pass the cost of “these enormous economic and social developments back to the farmers”.

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