Mr. Michael Scannell:

I will answer the first question as I did not touch on it earlier, regarding conditionality in the €500 million package announced on 23 March. That amount can be, and in most cases was, accompanied by twice as much from national funds so €1.5 billion in total. Yes, there is conditionality. Essentially member states are expected to target those farmers most directly impacted by rising input costs, included fertiliser costs in particular. We already have reports from members states on who they targeted accordingly. It was mostly those in the livestock industry because they were very hard hit by very sharp increases in animal feed costs. Cereals producers on the other hand, even though fertiliser and energy costs have risen sharply, benefited from even sharper increases in producer prices. By and large, the livestock sector seemed to have been the biggest beneficiary across all the member states. We will produce a report in due course on the overall take-up etc. The conditionality requirements left much of the flexibility to the member states. Frankly, we in the Commission are around a long time and we accept the situation varies enormously from one member state to another, from one sector to another, and indeed even within sectors.

We accept that the situation varies enormously from one member state to another, from one sector to another and even within sectors. There is no single one-size-fits-all approach. Member states have to be given sufficient flexibility to allow them to target who is most deserving of support. I have heard nothing to suggest that they have abused that flexibility. Hopefully I will not be disappointed when we get around to checking how they spent it.

On the issue of how we reorient our systems, Ireland was mentioned specifically. It comes back to the CAP strategic plan, which is perhaps the single biggest reform of the CAP. We are giving member states the flexibility to design their own agrifood production systems within the framework of the CAP, adapted to their own needs and challenges. That includes climate change and sustainability. Deputy Calleary would be familiar with this from his time as Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine. Ireland has in its own hands the instruments to design a system that is fit for Ireland. We in the Commission have an obligation to ensure that conforms to the overall structure and is consistent and coherent with what other member states are doing. There is an obligation on all of us to ensure it fits in within the wider Green Deal, Farm to Fork, Fit for 55 objectives, that is, creating a sustainable agrifood production system that will keep us fed without excessive contributions to greenhouse gas emissions. That is a big challenge but it has to be met because if we fail on that at member state level or EU level, the consequences will be huge, including for food production. Food sustainability and food security are not opposites. They are entirely complementary to one another. If we fail at one we will fail at the other.

On the message to hill farmers and suckler farmers, the big strength of those sectors in terms of CAP sustainability is that, apart from contributing to food supply, they are extremely rich in their contribution to biodiversity and rural development. Sustainability is not only about economics. We would stress this. There are three pillars, namely, the economic, the social and the environmental. These sectors contribute hugely to the social and environmental pillars, as well as the quality dimension. If I were working in any of these sectors I would be very proud of what I was doing. They should be proud and they should be supported in what they are doing. Sometimes they feel they are being ignored but that is not the case and should not be the case. That would be a big mistake.

Regarding what single issue would help, I already mentioned stopping the war in Ukraine. That would help hugely. Putting that aside, the answer is innovation, basically. Unless our agrifood production systems and our society in general become much more innovative in how we deal with and use energy, find alternatives and deal with climate change, we are going to be in huge trouble. The CAP reform puts a very heavy stress on innovation because traditionally and historically it is always innovation that has come to the rescue. If we are to move to systems that use less fertiliser and fewer plant protection products, we are going to have to find new technologies that allow us to meet these objectives. In other words, we need innovation.