“Hands off the CAP budget, unless you’re going to add more to it,” was Alice Doyle’s message to European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen on Tuesday morning.

The Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) deputy president was addressing IFA and ICOS members gathered outside the European Commission’s building in Dublin to protest against plans to dismantle the dedicated and ring-fenced CAP budget.

“The CAP budget has been undermined,” she said. “Budget cuts, no allowance for inflation, forcing farmers to do more and more for less and less. If the proposal to have a single fund for all EU expenditure goes ahead, it would be the end of CAP as we know it.

"We fear it will impact on the funding for schemes at farm level, damage the rural economy and shatter the confidence of the next generation who are thinking of getting into farming. It will undermine confidence in the entire European project.”

Affordable food

“European citizens appreciate the role that farmers play in delivering safe, traceable and affordable food.

"The recent Eurobarometer poll shows citizens understand the importance of the CAP,” said ICOS president Edward Carr, who highlighted the gap between farming’s contribution to the European economy and the scale of funding for the CAP.

The IFA and ICOS held a joint protest at the European Commission offices on Tuesday morning.

“Instead of cuts, this imbalance should be addressed with increased and inflation-adjusted allocations in the post-2027 multi-annual financial framework.”

Carr highlighted that similar protests were taking place all across the 27 EU member states.

Listening mode

“The [European] Commission is in listening mode,” Ireland's Commission representative Peter Power told the protesting farmers.

“Farming has always been central to the European project, this has not changed.”

Power is the head of representation of the European Commission in Dublin and works directly for Ursula von der Leyen in this capacity.

He addressed the protest against von der Leyen’s plan to subsume the CAP budget into an overall single budget for the EU.

“The budgetary cycle is kicking in now, your protest comes at a timely moment and your voice will be heard. There are a lot of competing interests, but it's important that we hear all the voices around the table."

“The Commission say they’re listening, but they’re acting like they’re not listening”, said Laois IFA chair Henry Burns in reply to Power.

Burns put the blame for the single budget proposal firmly on the Commission president’s shoulders.

“We have a huge problem with the Mercosur deal, which Ursula von der Leyen ran off and seemed to do ignoring the standards in South America. This a further retrograde step, a fundamental change,” he said.