Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon maintains that the European Commission’s proposals for a 20% cut to ringfenced CAP funds from 2028 represents a good starting point for negotiations, but one which “we need to build on, we need to grow” before implementation.
Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal, Minister Heydon was keen to emphasise that European Commissioner for Agriculture Christophe Hansen had stated just weeks ago that there had been no ringfenced funds for farmers as an internal budget debate rumbled on behind closed doors in Brussels.
“When you have an initial proposal that doesn’t have the same money as is in the existing one, when you consider inflation and everything, it is not one you are going to be excited and happy about,” he said on Tuesday from his office in Agriculture House.
“As a starting point for detailed negotiations to go on for the next 18 months or two years. It is a decent starting point for us to come from.
“If we are talking about this as it was the final proposal that we are going to have to live with, then obviously I would have a very different reaction to it.
“Maybe I am being a bit too cool and pragmatic about it. I am looking at this in the context that we will be still talking about this in two years’ time.”
The minister harked back to Phil Hogan’s stint as EU Commissioner for Agriculture as setting a precedent for expectations of severe reductions to CAP funding not materialising.
Predictions of “20% or 30% less” being left in the CAP pot as the EU struggled to balance the books after the UK’s departure from the EU were overcome at the time by topping strictly agricultural funds up with those from the pot dedicated to the environment, Minister Heydon said.
“We can all be innovative. We can all find ways to try and improve this.”
Flexibility key
Aside from the budget, key details proposed to reform farm payments and schemes have unsettled the minister, who again reiterated that this is an area he sees plenty of room to manoeuvre amendments and changes before the final version of the next CAP is actually agreed.
“I think one thing is for sure, there will be very significant change between these first proposals and what will end up being there. I won’t be the only minister to have concerns around some of them,” he said.
So strong are these concerns that Minister Heydon reported that “there has probably never been as much unity” among his colleagues from different member states.
Achieving flexibility to the maximum extent possible at national level will leave Ireland less shackled [and able] to design schemes best tailored for Irish farming systems, he said, adding that he sees the next CAP as having “fewer, more-simplified schemes”.
“It would be very ambitious to say we will have this done before the end of 2027 but you would need to say we will have it done by the beginning of 2028,” he said.
Farmer concerns
Minister Heydon slammed Brussels’ proposal to stop CAP payments to those receiving retirement pensions by 2032 as being a “draconian” and “a very crude instrument” which would especially hit older farmers without an identified successor, and who could be forced to abandon land.
The Minister voiced equally strong opposition to the notion that only those whose “primary activity” is agriculture should receive CAP payments. This is a part of the recently unveiled CAP plans that puts into jeopardy the payments received by thousands of Irish farmers holding down on off-farm job.
It takes a “serious farm to be able to supplement two houses” when a farm is transferred and a farmer must take care of parents leaving many forced to take up an off-farm job at certain times over their farming career, the minister said.
Schemes priority: “What my priority actually is – and people tell you to be careful of what you wish for – but I want as much flexibility as possible for member states to be able to design a CAP that suits their farming system, that best supports their farmers. The more that is dictated from Brussels, the more you are trying to get one CAP that suits 27 different member states.”
20% cut with national top-ups: “I think it is a very smart move by the Commissioner. He has tried to get as much ringfenced as he could, and to the rest of the member states which aren’t paying more [into the overall EU budget], he is saying ‘you can take it out of your own pot if you are not giving me more to be able to play with’.”
Budget priorities for EU’s eastern member states: “There is a very strongly-held view that believe they are in a pre-war phase and that they have about three years to arm up to defend themselves from what they feel is an inevitable invasion, whether it happens or not.”
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