§ Mr. HoodTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what the outcome was of the Agriculture Council held in Brussels on 20 and 21 November; and if he will make a statement.[140122]
§ Mr. Nick BrownI represented the United Kingdom at the meeting of the Agriculture Council on 20 and 21 November. Ross Finnie (Minister for Rural Development, Scottish Executive), Carwyn Jones (Minister for Rural Affairs, National Assembly for Wales) and Brid Rodgers MLA (Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development in the Northern Ireland Executive) were also present.
The Council held a lengthy discussion of the situation regarding BSE in the Union, following explanations from Commissioner Byrne of planned new Community measures and from France about the steps it had taken in response to recent concerns about the safety of beef in that country. The Council agreed that, notwithstanding the wide range of safety provisions already in place, testing for BSE should be introduced of animals over 30 months that were either at risk or entering the food chain, as an additional safety measure. I warmly welcomed this although all meat produced in the UK (except that from Beef Assurance Scheme animals which are exempt from our Over-30-Months Scheme) comes from animals slaughtered below this age.
The Council also emphasised the importance of a Community approach to BSE, rather than reliance on national measures, a point I stressed applied no less to the 403W national measures being maintained by France against UK exports than to those recently introduced against French exports. The Commission will seek rapid advice from its scientific advisers on the national measures which have been recently adopted and will propose a community approach (either calling for removal of the measures or replacing them with Community regulations) by the end of this month. An additional meeting of the Council will be called on 4 December if necessary.
Commissioner Byrne introduced the Commission's new proposals for a European Food Authority. The Council will hold an open (public) discussion of these at its next meeting.
The Council also adopted unanimously draft proposals for the WTO negotiations on agriculture. These set out the Union's ideas for negotiation covering both reductions in agricultural protection and support and measures to address non-trade concerns such as animal welfare and the environment, as well as particular measures to help developing countries. This agreement sends a clear signal of the Community's readiness to engage positively and constructively in these important negotiations.
The Council agreed by qualified majority proposals to reform the fruit and vegetable regimes. These include a very welcome simplification of the procedures for Community financing of producer groups' operational programmes as well as an increase in the ceiling on support for those programmes, whose aims include helping balance supply and demand, reducing costs and promoting environmentally sound practices. Along with Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands, however, I voted against the final Presidency compromise on the ground of its excessive increase in support to processing of tomatoes, peaches and citrus fruit.
The Council also agreed by qualified majority proposals concerning the control of blue tongue disease (Greece voting against) and animal nutrition (Finland voting against).