The future of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has been placed in the hands of former Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, it was announced today.
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Mr John Bruton
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Mr Bruton, who was ousted as head of the Fine Gael party last month, has been appointed co-president of a group to examine the EU agricultural strategy.
The group - jointly set up by the European People’s Party and the European Democratic Union - consists of representatives from 40 European political parties including the German Christian Democratic Union, the British Conservative Party as well as Fine Gael.
The group aims to reassure European consumers about the safety of European food - in light of the recent BSE and foot-and-Mouth crises - and to implement changes to CAP and facilitate EU enlargement.
Mr Bruton said the EU must decide whether to accept 100 per cent responsibility for market support to farmers in the future.
He said if the financing of market support was passed back to member states, the EU would have to face the possibility of competing national markets within the EU operating on different levels of state aid.
This, he said, would be "very distorting and against the whole spirit of the Union".
Commenting on his recent appointment as joint leader of the examining body, Mr Bruton said "it is very valuable to Ireland, which has to export to other EU countries a disproportionately large share of its agricultural produce, that one of its nationals has been asked to chair such a high level European study on agriculture".