Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Secretary General for the outline.

We will be discussing Pillar 2 later but in terms of the wide negotiations, why did the Presidency agree to a co-funding rate in Pillar 2 that was as low as 25% and 20% on such a wide range? Across Europe that had the possibility of reducing funds to farmers dramatically because there is the temptation now for national governments only to co-fund at the minimum rate to draw down all the European funding. Normally, when one sets a co-funding rate, the idea is to keep the rate up to force the other party to come up with the money. Does this potentially take a great deal of funding out of European agriculture that would be guaranteed for agriculture if the co-funding rate was higher?

There have been ongoing negotiations between the United States and the European Union and I understand that the committee has considered extending a memorandum of understanding between the United States and the European Union that would allow hormone-free beef into Ireland. I wonder how is this likely to affect us if we allow the big cattle rangers of America into the Irish and European markets. I understand that more than 90% of our beef is being sold on the European market and there is little in the way of third country exports. I wonder about the ongoing Mercosur negotiations. If we open up all our markets to international beef that might not be produced at the same standard as our beef and that might not be subject to all of the animal health regulation of Europe in terms of animal health and the method of farming of which would be totally different, what effect is it likely to have on beef prices here? We already have an agreement with Canada.

What will be the effect of all of these agreements? One agreement seems to lead to another. My understanding is that there is domination in Europe by those who want access to all of these markets for industrial goods. There is, to put it bluntly, a willingness to sell out agriculture by the powerful industrial countries in Europe in order to gain access to the industrial markets of the other countries and that one of the down-sides for Ireland of all of this pressure from Europe could be that agriculture, particularly the beef sector, would be the big loser.