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European Council: 15–16 December 2005

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend that we were not going to get reform of the CAP at this meeting. We never expected to. We have a process. Noble Lords may recall that in 2002 we obtained a deal which paved the way for enlargement. In 2003, a deal delinked subsidies from production. In 2004, we extended the scope of that deal to cotton and tobacco. This year, we have sugar reform. There will be reform of other sectoral regimes in the years to come. The Prime Minister, in his statement, made it absolutely clear that we wanted a fundamental review of the CAP and that in that respect we would look at our rebate. We did not expect to come out of this meeting having delivered that fundamental reform.