Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 5 June 2014

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine

Maximising the Usage and Potential of Land (Resumed): European Commission

10:50 am

Mr. Tassos Haniotis:

We thank the members for their questions. If there are any matters they need us to follow up on, we will be available to do so. I believe I express the opinion of my colleagues when I say that we also very much agree with the Chairman's last statement. One of the main contributions of the last CAP reform process has been that we will work together in a manner whereby, instead of having opposing views in respect of agriculture, climate change and the environment, we put them together in a concept that considers that private and public goods go hand in hand. Of course, the devil is always in the detail, and when it comes to the implementation of these measures we need to make sure we move in the direction that initially we wanted to, but because the world is so complex, it is very important that we work together both in the various parts of the Commission and also in terms of the Commission and the member states. I thank the members for their questions and we hope we have been able to clarify some matters.