Plans to reform the EU's farm policy may suffer serious setbacks after a Franco-Germandeal to curb future spending, with little chance of agreement onmajor items for several years, diplomats said today.
While some points in the European Commission'sreform package for the agriculture sector might survivemore or less intact, any ideas involving substantial changewould probably be shelved or significantly watered down, theysaid.
The deal, later incorporated into the final document of lastweek's summit of EU leaders on the bloc's inclusion of 10 morecountries, freezes 2007-2013 agriculture spending at 2006 levelswith a one percent inflation allowance. Effectively, it removesany urgency for radical reform.
But the summit's exact impact on Common Agricultural Policy(CAP) reform remains unclear and there is little sign of anyeasing in the months of deadlock among EU farm ministers on theCommission's proposals, known as the mid-term review of the CAP.
France, by far the largest beneficiary of CAP funds, hastrumpeted the deal struck by its President Jacques Chirac -himself a former farm minister - as a victory, and insists thatEU farm policy will be left unchanged until at least 2006.
"Chirac has won short-term, politically. The big issue isthat France will continue to be a major beneficiary," one EUdiplomat said.
The Commission admits it must modifysome of its ideas in light of the summit outcome, but claimsthat the mid-term review remains firmly on track.
It says there is no need for it to make any major positionchange. Reform remains as urgent as ever according to the EU FarmCommissioner Franz Fischler.