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EU: Agriculture and Fisheries Council

My right honourable friend the Secretary of State (Hilary Benn) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement. My honourable friend the Minister for Marine and the Natural Environment (Huw Irranca-Davies) represented the United Kingdom at the Agriculture and Fisheries Council in Brussels on 14-16 December. Richard Lochhead MSP and Michelle Gildernew MLA also attended. On fisheries, Council agreed the annual fishing opportunities regulation for 2010 which sets fishing quota and effort limits, principally for the North Sea, Irish Sea, Channel, and Atlantic. Discussions were narrower than in previous years, as technical and control measures are no longer included in this measure, since they are now subject to co-decision with the European Parliament. However, the recent failure of talks between the EU and Norway on the annual fisheries agreement meant that the regulation would need to find an interim mechanism to allow fishing of the stocks concerned. This led to unexpected complexity and difficulty in the final negotiations. The major points of interest to the UK in the final compromise included: commitments to the implementation of incentive catch quota, the detail to be determined following an EU-Norway agreement; only a 9 per cent reduction in Irish Sea nephrops; a quota reduction of 25 per cent in West of Scotland Haddock (with 25 per cent in 2011); a quota reduction of 5 per cent for Western Channel Sole; a 10 per cent increase in quotas for North Sea and West of Scotland megrim; no reduction in Celtic Sea cod quota; a rollover of quota for North Sea nephrops; and agreement from the European Commission to look again at the technical measures re-imposed on the West of Scotland at the November Council. Following a ministerial lunch on animal health, discussions then turned to the substantive agriculture items. Firstly, the Council took note of the Commission's report on options for animal welfare labelling and animal welfare reference centres; which was followed by a brief state of play report from the Presidency on the negotiations to agree a revision to the current rules governing the welfare of laboratory animals (expressing confidence that a deal could be struck with the European Parliament early in 2010). Continuing a trend of set-piece discussions on the future of the CAP, the Commission then presented its views on rural development policy post-2013 (it should be greener, and better aligned with the Lisbon Strategy), noting in summary that it saw no justification for continuing to finance Pillar 2 via modulation. Member States broadly welcomed the Commission's thoughts. Next, Council unanimously approved requests for state aid for agricultural restructuring from Latvia, Lithuania and Hungary. The UK, Denmark, Czech Republic, Estonia, Netherlands, Germany, Spain and Austria abstained. Council then reached partial political agreement on the timber due diligence regulation, though with further work needed on comitology provisions. The UK, Denmark, Spain and Belgium abstained, with the Netherlands voting against, because the final compromise did not include an express prohibition of the placing of illegally-logged timber on the Community market. The dossier would now be handed over to future Presidencies, starting with Spain, to handle negotiations with the European Parliament. Ministers took the opportunity to comment on the Commission's work on the 39 simplification proposals they had presented during the CZ Presidency. A number of the proposals had been addressed, but others had not been taken up. Denmark tabled a letter suggesting further discussions on the outstanding proposals at a political level. There was general support for two UK concerns: (1) that the Commission needed to be more joined-up and look at burdens on farmers beyond DG Agri and include DG Sanco and DG Environment; and (2) that the Commission should take a more risk-based approach to audits and controls, including the way penalties were applied. Work on this dossier would continue. The Commission then presented the latest instalment of its dairy market quarterly report noting that both commodity prices and farm gate prices had risen, that EU production remained lower than in 2008, and that the market was likely to be in balance in 2010. They also made reference to the recently established Dairy Fund, as well as to deliberations on improving the dairy supply chain in the High Level Group, as measures aimed at ameliorating the dairy crisis. The UK welcomed the positive trends and rising prices detailed in the report, urged the Council and Commission to focus on modernising the sector in preparation for the abolition of dairy quotas. The Commission presented its Communication on a better functioning food supply chain, a follow-up to last December's report on food prices to the European Council. Its aim was to examine the contractual relations across the chain, to monitor the development of competition issues, and to provide the basis for further in-depth discussions during the Spanish Presidency. Under any other business: the Presidency presented its report of the Conference of the EU Paying Agencies; Poland called for abolition of the sugar production charge (the UK argued against with Commission support); Slovakia called for transitional aid in the sugar sector to be targeted at the affected producers; the Commission informed Council of its recent agreement with the US and Latin countries, resolving long-standing banana disputes; Council took note of the progress made to update on EU food labelling rules; the Commission gave an update on the ongoing difficult negotiations with Russia on sanitary and phytosanitary issues; and the Netherlands informed Council of the outcome of a conference on GM policy held in the Netherlands from 25-26 November.