Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour)
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40. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if Commissioner Oettinger plans to outline a 6% cut in the CAP budget which would specifically apply to Pillar 1 payments; if so, the steps and policies he plans to implement to mitigate the extent of such a proposal in the case of the farming sectors that are highly dependent upon CAP payments as their primary source of income; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18308/18]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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The Budget Commissioner, Gunther Oettinger visited Dublin on 6 March 2018 as part of his tour of all European capitals in advance of the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) proposals being published on 2 May 2018. As part of his appearance before the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, he spoke of acceptable cuts to CAP and Cohesion of 5 - 10%. This was in the context of some Member States looking for cuts in these programme of up to 30%.

These figures must be seen in the context of the European Commission's own Reflection Paper on the Future of EU Finances which was published on the 14 February 2018. Within this paper, a range of scenarios across all major spending programmes are outlined and the impacts of maintaining the current budget, a 15% cut and a 30% cut are outlined. The Communication is very clear that these are just options and not proposals and are intended to stimulate an open debate.

Recent media reports indicate that Commissioner Oettinger stated at a trade Conference in Hannover that his proposal is for approximately a 6% cut.

From Ireland's perspective, the Taoiseach, in his address to the European Parliament in January of this year, indicated that Ireland is open to contributing more to the EU budget, but only if it is spent on policies that contribute to the advancement of the European ideal.

The CAP is such a policy. The European Commission's Communication on the Future of Food and Farming sets out a higher environmental ambition for the next CAP, highlights the need to strengthen the resilience of the European agriculture sector, and, improving the European added value of the policy to name but a few. In order to address these challenges I believe as strong a CAP budget as possible must be maintained post 2020 and I have repeatedly called for this at the Council of Agriculture Ministers meetings.

Discussions on the future CAP are intensifying under the Bulgarian Presidency and will continue afoot under the Austrian Presidency from 1 July. In that context, I look forward to engaging constructively with the Presidency, my European counterparts and the European Commission, to ensure the next CAP continues to provide necessary support to the Irish and European agriculture sector. My officials are also continuing to engage with their counterparts in the Presidency, the Commission, Member States and with our own Department of Finance who are the lead Department for Ireland on the MFF. We await the MFF proposals due to published on 2 May 2018.