Mr. Niall Curley:

That is something we have brought forward to the Commission as well. The fact is that if this is not applied across the board, it is greenwashing. It will remove large swathes of land from active and intensive agricultural production as well as forestry production and it will cause a severe reduction in the volume of food and wood fibre that is created. It is going to be basically a greenwashing of any future trade agreements because of the fact that we will already need to import different types of food and resources from different areas. I always refer, for instance, to the area that will need to be reduced to fulfil the targets in Finland and Sweden, because of the thousands of hectares of forestry that will need to be completely removed to specifically fulfil these targets, specifically when we are going into a resource crisis due to the war and previously due to Covid. It is going to be a serious obstacle, first, to the fulfilment of this and, second, to the future of how we do business in Ireland and in Europe because it is going to come down to an increased volume of trade with third countries.