During the daily management of the foot-and-mouth emergency it is all too easy to lose sight of the many implications it has for the future of European agricultural practice and policy. Some of the issues have surfaced this week at the informal meeting of agricultural ministers in the Swedish town of Ostersund, where food safety, animal welfare and transport, and the vaccination option were intensively discussed. The European Commission is proposing much more stringent regulation of animal transport, with possibly major consequences for Ireland's large export trade. Debate will continue on whether to extend vaccination.
Looking ahead, all concerned with agriculture in Ireland and elsewhere in Europe should be aware of the potentially radical fallout from the disease. This change was summarised at the meeting by the EU agricultural commissioner, Mr Franz Fischler, who remarked that the times when the Common Agricultural Policy was geared to maximise output are long gone. While that is true, the policy is still geared to quantity rather than quality - and this has now become a commonplace in discussion of what the BSE and foot-and-mouth crises mean. Mr Fischler agreed that assurances of food quality, ethical views on animal welfare and environmental goals must all be taken into account in any review of agricultural policy. He is responding to important shifts of attitude in the public opinion and political life of several EU member-states, notably Germany and the Netherlands. Ms Renate Kunast, the German minister of agriculture and consumer protection, exemplifies them. A leader of the Green party, she has insisted on a fundamental review of objectives and methods. The consumer takes precedence in this perspective over intensive methods of production and extensive animal transport which are increasingly regarded as inhumane and detrimental to food safety.
Ms Kunast enjoys the support of the German chancellor, Mr Schroder. Their political convergence will have longer-term implications when the European Commission conducts the mid-term review of the CAP to which it is committed next year by the 1999 Agenda 2000 agreement at the Berlin EU summit to prepare for EU enlargement. Far-reaching policy changes were successfully resisted there by France and Ireland among others. Germany went along with that to preserve its strategic partnership with France, the political foundation stone of European integration for many decades. But that balance is changing with EU enlargement. Franco-German relations are no longer based on an automatic readiness of the German government and taxpayer to underwrite a CAP absorbing such a large proportion of the EU budget. Pressure through the World Trade Organisation to reduce agricultural subsidies will feed into this political vortex. So will renewed pressure from the UK and others to change the policy next year rather than 2006. Ireland's agricultural interests and policies are also developing in response to these changes, requiring much more debate on priorities.