20-21 May Agriculture Council

Date: 23/05/1996

FARM ministers held a debate on the Commission's proposal to give geographical protection to certain 'traditional' products, such as Feta cheese and Parma ham. With a qualified majority against the proposal needed to overturn it, seven member states voted in favour and seven against (Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Germany, Austria, Belgium and France). The UK was the only country to abstain. The deadlock means that the Commission is now free to introduce the measure under its own competence.

ON the planned reform of the EU's fruit and vegetable sector, Italy highlighted progress since the compromise was tabled in April. The Special Committee for Agriculture (SCA) will look for a way forward on the three most problematical points: the withdrawal price, the level of EU co-financing and whether the proposal for tomatoes for processing should be introduced on an EU or national basis. New Italian Minister Michele Pinto was optimistic that a compromise could be reached in June.

ITALY updated ministers on the state of play in SCA discussions on the 1996/97 price package, but there was no further comment from any delegation or Agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischer, pending an opinion on the proposals from MEPs.

AS hazelnut producers demonstrated outside the Justus Lipsius building where farm ministers were meeting, Italy, Spain and France complained about the volume of imports, mainly from Turkey, and asked for the introduction of a safeguard clause. The Commission said this would be against World Trade Organisation rules, but agreed that the SCA could look into income support for European producers. There were similar calls from Austria, Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy for a special safeguard clause linked to imports of other fruit and vegetables.

SEVEN member states - the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Spain, Portugal, Belgium and Luxembourg - voted against a proposal put to the Standing Veterinary Committee, which met in parallel with the Council, to ease the export ban on gelatine, tallow and semen sourced from UK cattle. The Iberian countries were disappointed by the lack of detail and innovation in the revised slaughter programme. Dutch objections were mainly linked to plans to lift the ban on semen. The decision was a serious blow to both UK Minister Douglas Hogg and Fischler, both of whom had put considerable pressure on the Benelux countries and Austria to support the proposal. The plan will be looked at again by the full Commission and then passed on to ministers, probably at a special meeting arranged for 3-4 June, where at least eight member states would have to vote against it in order to block it.

FISCHLER outlined plans for a 650-million-ecu envelope of aid for beef farmers, stressing that payments must be made by 15 October - the end of the budget year. The Commissioner insisted that his initial concept of a standard top-up for the special beef premium and suckler cow premium was the best approach to follow, given the need to use existing administrative structures. Austria, Germany, France and Spain all asked for flexibility at a national level. Ireland asked for a doubling of the deseasonalisation premium to help winter beef producers. Italy requested a simple allocation of a sum of money to each member state, so that it would be able to compensate farmers not qualifying for premiums. Fischler will put a formal proposal to the Commission next week in the hope of a decision at the June Council, if Parliament can give an opinion by urgent procedure. This will form part of the business of the special Council on 3-4 June.

HOGG spent the second morning of the meeting presenting details of the UK's proposed extended slaughter programme. He received qualified support for the broad outlines of the scheme, although ministers appeared to reject talk of exempting certain herds - such as those fed exclusively on grass - from the terms of the ban. The improved slaughter programme included two major changes from the plan outlined in April. Isolation for affected animals would no longer be an option and the number of animals covered would be extended to include confirmed BSE cases from 'cohort' groups born between September 1990 and 1993. This would raise the number slaughtered to around the 80,000 mark, removing a number of animals thought most likely to develop BSE at a later stage.