§ Sir John Wellsasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what was the outcome of the Council of Agriculture Ministers' meeting in Brussels on 25 to 27 March; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. JoplingWith my hon. Friend the Minister of State, I represented the United Kingdom at the Council of Agriculture Ministers in Brussels on 25 to 27 March.
The main subject of the Council was the Commission's price proposals. In addition to detailed discussion of the individual commodity proposals a series of bilateral meetings was held with the Commission and Presidency to identify points of difficulty for individual Member States.
In the light of the outcome of these discussions the Council decided that decisions could not be reached this week and that discussions should resume in Luxembourg on 1 April.
The Council also decided that the marketing years for milk products, beef, sheepmeat and dried fodder would be extended until 14 April as the marketing years for these regimes would otherwise terminate at the end of the month.
A conciliation meeting was held with the European Parliament delegation on the wine reform package and a declaration was agreed with it on aspects of implementation.