Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Ahearn for raising this issue. His timing is important, as I am flying to Brussels this evening and I will be there until Friday for three days of a trilogue meeting between the Council of Ministers, the European Commission and the Parliament to try to get final agreement, as the Senator indicated in his contribution, to the European CAP plan.

The CAP negotiations have been under way for just under three years. The CAP reform proposals were first presented to the European Commission in June 2018. The European Council reached a position with regard to those proposals in October 2020, as did the European Parliament. Since then, trilogue negotiations between all parties have been under way. The negotiations have been challenging. The Council favours a position of broad flexibility for member states. I fully support this approach. It is important to be able to take account of the very different farm structures across Europe. The Parliament, however, is seeking a more prescriptive approach. As always, a compromise must be found. I continue to work with my counterparts in Europe to achieve a successful outcome for Irish farmers.

The new CAP proposals are focused around a number of key areas. First, there is an increase in environmental ambition with the introduction of eco schemes in pillar l, enhanced conditionality standards and a number of targets for spending directed towards environmental actions. I believe farmers more than anyone understand the impacts of climate change and are willing to engage on this topic. Farmers have always been adapters and they have also been adopters in this regard. We can see this in the keen interest shown in the results-based environment-agri, REAP, pilot. The new CAP will include interventions to support environmental ambition. For the first time there will be a new eco scheme as part of pillar I payments. Under this, farmers will be rewarded for undertaking environmental actions and farming in an environmentally friendly fashion.

Second, the proposals have focused on the continuing redistribution of farm payments through capping, degressivity and convergence. I recognise that this is a challenging area and there are mixed views among farmers and farm organisations in this regard, as Senator Ahearn outlined. I have always been clear that I believe in capping of overall farm payments and that is something I have pursued throughout the negotiations in Brussels.

The new CAP will introduce a new delivery model, which will move away from the compliance-based approach to focus on the results and outcomes achieved. I support the intention to focus more on the outcomes and results. Each member state must submit a comprehensive and coherent CAP strategic plan to cover both Pillar I and Pillar 2 expenditure. The entire process is the subject of extensive consultations with stakeholders and citizens alike. We began this process even before the regulations were published and since then we have set up a CAP consultative committee with broad representation among stakeholders. There have also been public consultations at various stages including a strength, weakness, opportunity and threat, SWOT, analysis, so there are ample opportunities for all to engage in this process.

This week's Agrifish Council aims to reach an overall conclusion. If we are to submit our plans to the European Commission by January 2022 it will be necessary to reach agreement soon. The next CAP will be a further evolution in this central EU policy that has served farmers well for many decades. Citizens are focused clearly on climate change and environmental action and the new CAP will address those demands and support farmers to bring about this change. These are and will be challenging negotiations. There are clear differences of opinion between the various EU institutions. I assure Senator Ahearn that my intention is to achieve the best possible outcome for Irish farmers.