Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There is clearly a lot of relief that the Council was able to agree a budget for the Union. However, the budget that has emerged is not one that will stimulate growth, create jobs or increase competitiveness. It could actually lead to a structural deficit and it does not help Ireland or any country that wants the European Union to help its citizens at this time of deep crisis. As we have heard from the Taoiseach, there are many claims being thrown around about a more dynamic Union, but at the heart of the budget agreement is a refusal to unleash the potential of collective action against recession and unemployment. One should remember that we in Europe are in an unprecedented recession and a set of circumstances not seen since the late 1920s. No matter how one dresses it up, at a time when the challenges faced by the Union are rising, its resources to tackle them will decrease.

There are 26 million people out of work in the Union today. Many live in regions that have little or no access to funding or opportunities to help create new jobs. This is the very moment at which the ideals of the Union should have come into play. At a time when faith in the Union has fallen, the most consistent hope of citizens is that it will help with jobs and growth. We should have had stronger countries accepting that we all benefit when we help the Union as a whole to prosper. Unfortunately, a deeply short-sighted approach has prevailed and it threatens to hold back the Union over the next seven years.

The communiqués from summits such as that under discussion are always padded with excess verbiage. Often the preambles bear almost no relation to the details of what has been agreed. The gap between the rhetoric of the leaders and the reality of their agreement has rarely been so large as in the case of this summit. In the opening paragraph of a 47-page document, the leaders state they have based their agreement on the fact that we must

ensure that the European Union's budget is geared to lifting Europe out of the crisis. The European Union's budget must be a catalyst for growth and jobs across Europe, notably by leveraging productive and human capital investments.

The headings of the agreement refer to "Smart and Inclusive Growth", "Sustainable Growth" and other worthy goals. At face value, one would imagine it marks a major departure for the Union, or that something big has been agreed.

The actual financial allocations detailed in the technical sections show that almost nothing will actually be done to fulfil the agreement’s stated objectives. Leaders have not only decided to contain expenditure through the Union; they have actually agreed to start shrinking its significance within the European economy. The Union’s budget will now fall as a percentage of Europe’s gross national income, from 0.98% to 0.95%. How can anybody credibly claim that the Union will play a leading role in promoting jobs and growth when it represents such a tiny and falling percentage of Europe’s economy?

The budget does include a number of new measures or expansions in important programmes. Added together, they will not make a significant difference. What makes this worse is that these expansions come at the price of significant cuts elsewhere in the budget, with agriculture taking by far the biggest hit.

The leaders have agreed to cut funding for the Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, by 10% in today’s prices, which amounts to €4 billion per annum. It is a very damaging decision. Many people across Europe like to dismiss the CAP as part of the old European Union and as getting in the way of more dynamic spending. This shows a complete misunderstanding of both the CAP and the basis upon which countries agreed to join the Union. Agriculture is the only area in which the Union has a fully funded policy which ranges across all issues in a sector. It has given Europe food security and it helped preserve much rural life which would otherwise have been under threat. It is flawed, but it should be valued as a great success and not put under constant pressure.

Our major concern is that the 10% cut that the Taoiseach and his colleagues agreed may lead to a restructuring of payments that does unacceptable damage to the livelihood of many farmers. We absolutely reject the idea that payments should be concentrated into fewer hands, prioritising so-called commercial farms at the expense of other farmers. This would be a betrayal of the small and medium farmers who are the lifeblood of much of our rural life and of the social dimension of the Union. Many small farmers must combine farming with other income-generating activity in order to keep going. An attack on their income-support payments could force many off the land. If we lose them now, we will have lost them forever and our country will always regret it.

The Taoiseach should be aware that no amount of spin will cover up a bad agreement in CAP reform. All classes of farmer deserve to be treated fairly and we will do everything we can, both here and in Europe, to support them.

The trade-off between agriculture and tokenistic increases for other policies is the dark reality of the agreed budget. One area that shows this very well is youth unemployment. This is supposedly a priority for our Presidency of the Council and for the entire budget. In the end, what has emerged is a grand total of €6 billion to be spent through the entire Union across the next seven years. The economic impact of this will be, at best, negligible.

The youth guarantee is one of many Union policies that cannot be achieved with the funding included in this budget. It is proposed that Europe take the lead in innovation through advanced research. The plans outlined by Commissioner Geoghegan-Quinn show how this could be done with genuinely world-beating collaborations across the Union. Unfortunately, her budget will not be near what is required to meet this objective.

A bad development in the agreement is the additional limit that has been placed on the total of payments, as opposed to commitments, that the Union can make. This was a crucial agenda item for British Prime Minister David Cameron. Unfortunately, he succeeded in this, and it will have very negative consequences for many EU citizens. The difference between total payments and commitments has traditionally allowed some flexibility to reward well-performing countries and to fund new initiatives. For example, the modest jobs-and-growth package agreed early last year was entirely funded this way. Ireland has also always done well out of this process because we run efficient and effective programmes. We always have, as the Taoiseach confirmed.

What is worst with this budget is that it has been significantly driven by an agenda that is not demonstrative of willingness to unleash the potential of the Union. A number of governments argued that the Union should be cut back just as they are cutting back. This is flawed analysis. What the countries did not acknowledge is that the Union never expanded in the way that governments did before this recession. The increases in the Union's budget over the years have never been dramatic and it has stayed at roughly 1% of its GDP. Equally, there is no country in the Union committing to keeping expenditure to a low set percentage of national income for seven years.

The great straw man of eurocrats supposedly burning our money in a spree of waste falls apart when one sees an administrative budget set at 5% of the total. Certainly, many administrative reforms are still required, but there is no pot of gold waiting for us if we slash administrative costs.

President Van Rompuy had a difficult job getting the deal agreed at the Council. It might well be the case that no other agreement was possible, given the destructive agenda of some leaders who were looking for a reason to wield the veto. The best construction that can be put on this deal is that while it is not good, it is better than nothing. The early indications are that there will be some trouble during the process of getting the European Parliament's agreement to the budget. The group leaders reacted very strongly on Friday. They correctly believe that the Council is short-changing Europe and the citizens who look to the Union for help. Ultimately, the ratification process might involve some modifications of the deal. This will be no bad thing. However, it is unlikely that the money available to the Union will increase by more than a token amount.

We cannot wait for another seven years before a new and more ambitious approach is taken to the work of the Union. The lack of a strong fiscal base remains one of the core flaws in the working of the eurozone, and it is a great weakness for the Union at this time of crisis. This way of funding and limiting the Union's budget has failed and should be replaced. If this is to happen, Ireland must speak up and support more radical reform of the Union. We should abandon the policy of opposing reform if a treaty might be required, and say clearly that the current approach is not working. We should not sit on the sidelines when the British Tory Party works to push its destructive agenda of trying to gut the Union. The list of demands made by the Prime Minister, David Cameron, amounts to saying that Britain will only stay in the Union if it stops being the Union. The most recent opinion polls in his country suggest that his grand gamble is not working at home, and it should not be allowed to progress in Europe.

The summit did not address banking issues, including the slow and poor progress being made on the banking union. I will address this area in more detail later today in the debate on the promissory notes.

With regard to other matters, the summit made some reference to trade, although not of any great significance. Ireland should continue the policy of opposing the trade deals at any cost strategy of some. We should retain the right to prevent key parts of our societies from being undermined by unbalanced deals.

It is amazing that the escalating horsemeat controversy was not raised at the summit. Since the first days of the controversy I have been calling for concerted European action. The least that should have happened at the summit should have been an acknowledgement of what has happened and an agreement to call for a co-ordinated response. This is a very serious and grave issue. I believe the needs and concerns of consumers have not received the urgent attention that this crisis demands. It has exposed a very weak link in the food chain across Europe and, indeed, in this country. Nearly 12 months ago the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine was warned by a Sunday Timesexposé and some documentaries about the various scams and criminal activity in respect of the trading of horses in this country. The issue of whether we can say with certainty that horsemeat has not been entered at will into the Irish food chain has never been seriously addressed.

Last February or March, Deputy Kelleher tabled a parliamentary question about the traceability of horsemeat and the need to establish such a regime. He received no affirmative response that this would be done. There are traceability regimes for cattle, pigs and sheep, but there is no such regime in respect of horses. The consequences of that are being seen now. There has been a lack of urgency on this issue. It has been a slow burner since last November. An understandable desire to protect the industry appears to have trumped the real need to protect the customer and to ensure the customer gets what he or she asks for in terms of what is printed on the tin when they buy food products in supermarkets. They have been let down very badly. For some reason the Government has waited until this week to do anything through its Presidency of the Council. I welcome the meeting of agriculture Ministers that has been arranged, but it is very late. Indeed, as with the entire European agenda, far more urgency and ambition are required, not just on this issue but on the wider economic area.

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