Agenda Europese Landbouwraad maart 2009
The Agriculture & Fisheries Council will meet in Brussels on Monday 23 March (starting at 11 a.m.), under the Presidency of Mr Petr Gandalovič, Czech minister for Agriculture. Commissioners Mariann Fischer Boel and Stavros Dimas will represent the Commission at the meeting.
No Fisheries points are on the agenda. Over lunch, Ministers will have a discussion on "Global economic turmoil: A challenge for the EU farm policy?"
The points on the agenda are:
Agriculture
Situation on the milk market
The Council will have an exchange of views on the situation of the dairy market.
Simplification of the CAP
On 18 March, the Commission adopted the Communication "A simplified CAP for Europe - a success for all". Thanks to considerable progress already made in simplifying the Common Agricultural Policy and other measures still to be carried out, the Commission is confident that it will meet its objective of reducing the administrative burden arising from the CAP by 25 percent by 2012. This view is supported by the recently adopted opinion on agriculture of the Stoiber group. A new report highlights a number of measures taken over the past three and a half years which reduce red tape for farmers, companies involved in the food business and administrations, and promise to reduce annual costs by hundreds of millions of euros, which will render European farming more competitive.
The Communication, press release and further information on CAP simplification is available at: http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/simplification/index_en.htm
Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel will present the Communication to the Ministers, followed by an exchange of views.
Report on the use of ICT in rural areas
On 3 March 2009, the Commission adopted the Communication "Better access for rural areas to modern ICT". Connecting the 30% of the EU's rural population that has no high speed internet access should be a priority for achieving 'broadband for all' by 2010. Improved internet connectivity is a powerful tool to stimulate swift economic recovery. The Communication outlines how the Commission would use its own support programmes to boost internet networks and services in rural areas, and called on EU Member States to do the same. Good internet access can make farms and companies in rural areas, especially small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), less isolated and more competitive through access to international markets and faster and more efficient ways of doing business.
The Communication, press release and further information are available on internet at: http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/rurdev/employment/ict/index_en.htm
The Communication will be presented to the Ministers, followed by an exchange of views.
AOB
- Proposal for a Directive establishing a framework for the protection of soil ("Soil Framework Directive") (German demand)
- Problems concerning the supply of organic protein feed (Finnish demand)
- Aid for sugar beet growers in Member States using SAPS (Hungarian demand)
- Restructuring of the sugar sector (German demand)
- Situation of the pig meat market (Belgian demand)
- 24th Conference of EU paying agencies - Conclusions (French request)
- High-level Conference on Agriculture Product Quality (Prague on 12/13 March 2009) - Information from the Presidency
- 17th session of the United Nations Commission for sustainable development - Information from the Presidency
Food safety and health
Universal declaration on Animal Welfare
The Council is due to adopt conclusions calling for the development of a universal declaration on animal health. This will be adopted as an A point but the Presidency will further brief Ministers on the subject.
AOB
- Plucking, Harvesting of down and feathers from geese (Swedish demand)
- Memorandum EC - Russian Federation: Safety of plant products for human consumption (Italian demand)
- Electronic identification of sheep and goat (Hungarian demand)
- Dramatic situation in the sheep and goat sector in Cyprus - Scrapie disease (Cypriot demand)
- GMOs: Approval and cultivation (Dutch demand)
