Proposed CAP cuts could be reversed in exchange for additional funding for other European policies in talks between EU member states in the coming months, European Commissioner for Agriculture Phil Hogan told the Irish Farmers Journal.

“There is a lot to play for yet,” he said after the European Commission’s opening proposal for the EU’s budget after 2020 earlier this month included a 5% cut on agricultural spending.

In an interview with the Irish Farmers Journal in Shanghai at the end of a trade mission to China, Commissioner Hogan noted that some of the most vocal countries demanding CAP cuts, such as the Netherlands and Denmark, also requested more EU money to address migration issues. “We can tell them now: if more money goes into the pot, there will be more for your priorities,” he said.

In addition to the Dutch and the Danes, Austria, Finland and Sweden have refused to increase their contribution to the EU’s budget to make up for the Brexit shortfall, triggering proposed cuts in farm payments. Asked if he had fought hard enough to protect CAP from such cuts, Commissioner Hogan said: “I was able to keep it as low as 4% for direct payments at a time when many other member states thought it should be 15% in nominal terms, I think was a good opening position.” He added that another group of states led by France and Ireland opposes any cuts to the CAP budget. “I have spent not the month of April 2018 working on this budget, but the last year and a half,” he said, lobbying 14 prime ministers and all ministers of agriculture in the EU on this issue.

Between budget and Brexit threats, Commissioner Hogan said that his visit to China came “at a good time for Ireland” and Europe as a whole. “China, Japan and Asia generally is going to fill a very important gap in the future for many of our important commodities in the EU.”

He pointed out that China’s forecast 8m tonnes beef import requirement alone is equivalent to the EU’s total production. “It also replaces some of the market share that we lost to the Russian embargo some years ago.”

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