Joe Walsh (Cork South West, Fianna Fail)

I am delighted to open this debate on full decoupling of payments under the Agenda 2000 mid-term review agreement that was reached by the Council of Ministers in Luxembourg on 26 June last.

The proposals presented by the European Commission comprised the most radical reform of the Common Agricultural Policy since its foundation. The agreement reached in the Agriculture Council in Luxembourg was the culmination of a long negotiating process. My objective in the negotiations was to safeguard the benefits to Irish agriculture and our rural communities which were achieved under Agenda 2000 and to ensure the best possible level of support and protection of our farming production base into the future.

The outcome of the negotiations contained substantial modifications to the Commission's proposals and represented a successful outcome from Ireland's point of view. The new agreement will reshape the Common Agricultural Policy and secure its future by making it more relevant to modern society and to consumer demands. We now have the opportunity to exploit the new situation to our advantage.

I am sure that the details of the agreement are well known at this stage, but I will outline the main issues briefly. First, the Agriculture Council agreed to amend the proposal for full decoupling of direct payments by giving member states options which would allow them to implement decoupling in a manner best suited to their requirements, thus fulfilling Europe's long held principle of democratic subsidiarity.

On 19 October last, having given careful consideration to the 200 or so submissions which were received under the public consultative process I initiated last July and to the outcome of the