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The EU Commissioner for Agriculture, Phil Hogan has told RTÉ radio that member states have indicated that they are willing to ‘plug’ the gap in Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) funding once the UK leave the European Union.
“We do have ideas about how we can plug it (CAP) and that’s to get money from the member states. And already 21 out of the 27 member states have indicated that they are prepared to put more money into the EU budget to prepare to support the European Union project,” the commissioner told presenter Seán O’Rourke.
Remove the red-line issue of being part of a Customs Union
Commissioner Hogan said that the member states, including Ireland, were willing to increase Ireland’s contribution post-Brexit, to keep ‘strengthening Europe’ and supply funds for defence, security and the CAP.
The news will be welcomed by many farmers and farm organisation as the EU Budget Commissioner Gunther Oettinger has previously stated that no member states had come forward to make up the UK's contributions to the CAP budget.
Customs Union
Hogan also stated that the only way for the island of Ireland to gain regulatory alignment post-Brexit and avoid a hard customs border, was for the British Conservative government, led by Theresa May, to back track on their public commitment to withdraw from the Customs Union.
“If you think that we’re (European Commission) interfering with the constitution of Northern Ireland then you’d have to ask someone from the UK government why did they sign up to the December Agreement?
“They signed up because they know, that the only way that they can operationalize the agreement and ensure we have regulatory alignment on the island of Ireland is for the United Kingdom to change their view and remove the red-line issue of being part of a Customs Union.”
Commissioner Hogan, conceded that the EU and the UK accepted that prime minister Theresa May had a difficult job ahead of her, but that recent ‘hysterics’ relating to a draft proposal for the UK’s withdrawal were unacceptable.
He said the UK had participated in the December agreement which had served as blueprint for the proposal, which outlined the conditions that were involved in maintaining ‘regulatory alignment’ between the north and south of Ireland. Hogan reminded listeners that ‘time is ticking’ and the UK needed to decide how they were going to proceed with negotiations.
SHARING OPTIONS: