Major changes in the Common Agricultural Policy due to be announced this week will be opposed by both the Irish and French governments.
On Wednesday the EU Commissioner, Mr Franz Fischler, is due to announce a package which should have been a "review" of the Common Agricultural Policy, but now appears to have taken on the guise of a "reform".
The last time the CAP was reformed, the details were finally hammered out at the Berlin summit in November 1999; this agreement became known as "Agenda 2000".
The farmers put their effigies away to await another bonfire and settled in to living and working with an agreement which was manageable and in the end delivered them over 60 per cent of their farm income for the past few years.
However, with a major row looming between the European Union and the United States in the world trade agreement talks, Mr Fischler is expected to take a step too far for Irish and French farmers in the review/reform.
His officials have been leaking proposals which would, if accepted, help the EU tell the US that Brussels is supporting farmers, not farm production.
Simply, he is expected to announce he will decouple as many farm payments as possible from actual farm production and make one single payment to each farm.
The leaks also suggest that payments will be modulated, with compulsory and progressive cuts from all direct payments rising to a cumulative 18.4 per cent.
In the cereals sector it is being mooted that there will be a 5 per cent cut in the intervention price with only partial compensation.
On beef, no major changes are expected other than those decoupling of payments from production.
However, there is expected to be a major raft of new regulations dealing with animal welfare and controls under which subsidies for live exports are given.
The Commissioner is also expected to announce an upper limit or capping of EU payments of €300,000 per farm on direct payments.
The savings made in the new scheme would be directed towards rural development schemes to make them more socially acceptable.
The farm organisations here say that these proposals will do nothing to enhance Irish agriculture and want the Government to form an alliance with the French to defeat them.
The French government has signalled that it will oppose the package and may take legal action to block its implementation.
The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, have said already that they will defend Irish interests in the review.
Mr Walsh is on record as saying that he is prepared to "consider a review but not a reform".
The Irish Farmers' Association said it bought into an agreement which was supposed to run until 2006 and will not stand for any fundamental changes now.
The main opposition is likely to come from the larger farmers who benefit most from the payments and could see some loss of income because of them.
However, the proposals would not have a major impact on farmers taking less than €5,000 a year in premia.
It is unlikely that negotiations on the package will be concluded before the end of the year.