27 September: Agriculture Council

Date: 30/09/1999

EU FARM ministers agreed a negotiating strategy to defend the Union's agricultural policies in the forthcoming round of world trade liberalisation talks. Ministers agreed on the need for a comprehensive round covering as many different sectors as possible and promised to fight hard to protect the farm policy agreed by EU governments as part of the Agenda 2000 reform package in March.

MINISTERS pledged to defend the two main forms of agricultural support, known as “green” and “blue” payments, in the World Trade Organisation round which is due to start at the end of this year. They also decided to go on the offensive by attacking elements of other countries' farm policies which they see as distorting trade. These include export credit guarantees, used mainly by the US to subsidise exporters of farm products, and state trading enterprises, used in Canada and New Zealand, which give producers better prices than they would get on the open market.

THE Council also vowed to try to convince the EU's WTO partners to recognise the “European model of agriculture”, which would entitle the EU to compensate farmers for non-productive services they provide such as maintaining the countryside and guaranteeing rural employment. Some ministers also insisted that greater emphasis be given to non-trade issues, including environmental protection and food quality and safety.

NEW Health and Consumer Protection Commissioner David Byrne, attending his first Agriculture Council, told ministers that he was planning to draft plans for new animal feed legislation by December at the latest. He added that his proposals would cover all the existing loopholes in the law governing feed, and that he hoped to get the new legislation in place by the end of 2002. Byrne said the proposal would include new rules for animal feed produced from genetically modified organisms which Austria's Farm Minister Wilhelm Molterer had called for.

IN DISCUSSIONS on the recent dioxin crisis in Belgium, Byrne said there was a need to monitor dioxin levels in food across the EU. He proposed adding dioxins to the list of substances covered by the Union's residue testing regime, which normally targets pesticides. The Commissioner also promised to table

proposals for an EU-wide control regime by October 2000 after studying member states' existing programmes. As an additional safeguard, Byrne suggested including animal feed in the Union's rapid alert system, which requires EU governments to inform all other member states and the Commission when there is a food safety problem.

IN A brief debate on attempts to resolve the dispute with the US over the Union's banana import regime, ministers urged the Commission to come forward with a new reform proposal soon.