Mr. David Lynch:

With regard to fees, I suppose the Commission is coming from a particular point of view. The Commission states that all member states are suffering from difficult financial circumstances and is afraid, as Mr. Loftus said, that there are reductions in the quality and quantity of official controls, which is creating less than a level playing field. Perhaps it would be better if all of those people on whom official controls are exercised actually paid the cost of it. It allows for exceptions in the case of micro-industries. We are at the very early stage of discussions - we are only at Article 24 - and we are talking here about Article 76 or 77, so we have a bit to go before we have an initial discussion on it. In some of the early conversations, I did not get the feeling that member states were against what the Commission is proposing. Some member states have said that we should not exempt micro-industries - that everybody should be levied, and that would be a fairer system, with a small levy on small sectors and a larger levy on bigger sectors. There is a long way to go and a spectrum of opinions in the Community on how to look at this initiative. We will have to wait for a consensus to arise from the discussions before we decide how to handle the negotiations as we go on.