§ Mr. LidingtonTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what was the outcome of the Agriculture Council held in Brussels on 16 and 17 March; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. GummerI represented the United Kingdom at the meeting of the Agriculture Council on 16 and 17 March, together with my hon. Friend the Minister of State.
The main issue on the Council's agenda was a further discussion of the Commission's farm price proposals for 1993–94. No decisions were possible, in the absence of the European Parliament's opinion. But, at my strong urging, the Council and Commission made a declaration that it would not be appropriate to bring linseed into the set-aside arrangements for 1993–94. This removes the damaging and unnecessary uncertainty that linseed growers had been facing as a result of the Commission's proposals.
To avoid milk quotas expiring at the end of the month, the Council agreed provisionally to roll them forward for 1993–94 at their existing levels. The Council also declared that the milk co-responsibility levy would be abolished as from 1 April 1993, as part of its decisions on the price package as a whole.
The French Government requested the Council to approve national assistance for their sheep producers, whose returns they believed to have been adversely affected by imports. I made it clear that I would only agree in exchange for an assurance that the French Government would take all necessary steps to secure the free flow of goods, particularly fish, within the single market. The French Minister of the Interior has promised that his Government would do this: and that instructions to this effect had gone to the prefectures concerned.
Along with several other members of the Council, I pressed the Commission to bring forward measures to protect the welfare of animals in transit, and the Commission agreed to do so.