§ Mr. CranTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what was the outcome of the Agriculture Council in Brussels on 18 and 19 July; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. MacGregorAs I said in reply to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. McLoughlin) on 20 June, final agreement on the Community's farm support prices and related measures for 1988–89 could not be reached because of last-minute objections raised by the Greek Minister. Although it was thought that further discussion on 23–24 June, which led to proposals voted on at the Fisheries Council meeting on those days, had overcome the difficulty, this subsequently proved not to be the case due to a disagreement about the interpretation of the relevant text.
I am glad to say that at this week's meeting of the Council of Ministers, at which I represented the Government, the Greek problem was resolved in a way which was satisfactory to the United Kingdom and fully met our objectives. The decisions on prices and other measures will therefore now come into effect as described in my reply of 27 June to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell).
The Council also reached agreement, subject to receiving the opinion of the European Parliament, on contributions from the Community budget on two disaster aid packages, first towards the cost of assistance to olive producers in Greece who were affected by unusually severe frosts last March and second towards the cost of making good damage from last year's flooding in parts of Spain.