IRISH FARMERS’ Association president Padraig Walshe enjoyed an “open and frank” exchange of views with agricultural commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel in Brussels yesterday.
After the lobby group’s first meeting with the commissioner since Ireland rejected the Lisbon Treaty, commission officials said Ms Boel had expressed her deep disappointment to the IFA at the referendum result.
“Open and frank” are often used as code words in Brussels to describe a blazing row, but Ms Boel’s spokesman insisted there was no question of punishing Irish farmers because of the IFA’s tactics in the run-up to the vote.
Mr Walshe, who refused to provide IFA support for the treaty until the Government promised to veto a bad deal in world trade talks, said he did not think a blame-game over the referendum result would help anyone.
He also insisted the IFA had not lost any influence in Brussels as a result of its somewhat belated support for the treaty.
“We’ll be able to influence important issues such as the health check of the Common Agricultural Policy (Cap) and will engage with discussions with our counterparts in other countries. There is no danger of our farmers being treated in a different way.”
However, some officials in the commission and other EU institutions have said the IFA may not find the commission as responsive to Irish concerns as before.
“They played student-union politics on the international stage,” said one official.
Most observers doubt if the previous level of goodwill for Irish farmers will remain just as important issues such as a proposed reduction in direct payments under the Cap health check are under discussion.
“This was a textbook example of how not to deal with an issue,” said one EU official.
“The IFA went to the cliff edge and were only pulled back at the last minute by the Government before terminal damage was done. They probably have only just survived Lisbon because everyone is getting the blame for what was a disastrous campaign.”
The IFA is a very effective Irish lobby group in Brussels. However, there was huge disquiet in EU circles when it failed to campaign for the treaty until the final days.