The Commissioner's sales pitch for his value-for-money message had a varied reception, writes Sean MacConnell, Agriculture Correspondent
When the EU Commissioner for Agriculture and Fisheries, Franz Fischler, departed from Dublin on Monday evening, he left behind an uneasy calm in the agri-sector.
The sector had breathed a sigh of relief last month when it appeared that the big Austrian's plan to radically reform the Common Agricultural Policy had been all but scuppered by the EU Summit in Brussels.
There, the heads of state had decided to phase in the direct payments for the new member-states from 2004 and to fix a ceiling for agricultural spending between 2007 and 2013 at the level of the 2006 ceiling, increasing by a yearly 1 per cent to take account of inflation.
"Fischler Blocked" trumpeted the headline in the first November edition of the Irish Farmers Journal, the bible for all Irish farming folk.
It reported that Fischler's proposal on "modulation", a compulsory and progressive cut from all direct payments rising to a cumulative 20 per cent, had been scrapped.
There was also the hope that his "decoupling" proposal, the breaking of the link between production and direct payments to be replaced with a single payment, would be watered down.
This week, on the safe side of the Nice Referendum - during which the main farm organisation, the IFA, had sulked, ran its own Yes campaign and applied a lot of political pressure on the Government - Dr Fischler arrived as large as life declaring that his reforms were not put on ice.
The man from the Alps went on to assure farmers, consumers and the meat industry that the heads of state had not expressly ruled out the possibility of the mid-term review being adopted before 2006. He seemed to relish the idea of pushing forward with as much as possible of his reform package.
It was a message that the farmers and the meat-processors did not want to hear because both have serious problems with any tinkering with the CAP, which was last reformed in 2000 for a period which should have remained relatively undisturbed until 2006.
He was selling a value-for-money message and said that a recent EU-wide survey had found that 84 per cent of Irish citizens and 90 per cent of all EU citizens wanted the CAP to ensure that agriculture products were healthy and safe.
He pointed out that only 43 per cent of Irish people polled were satisfied with the current Common Agricultural Policy, a score which should make Irish people think and act.
His plan, which he accepted had not been met with an enthusiastic reaction in Ireland, had been devised to strengthen rural development, make a more market-orientated, sustainable agriculture and enhance the competitiveness of EU agriculture.
Above all, he said, he wanted to promote food quality, higher standards, animal welfare and environmental protection. This, he said, was not a revolution.
He had to keep an eye to the forthcoming World Trade Organisation talks in which Europe would have to offer something in return if it wanted a successful outcome in the WTO round.
With the exception of the small Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers' Association, the main organisations oppose Dr Fischler's reforms and say they should not be imposed before 2006.
But the most serious objection to the decoupling plan was put forward by the Irish Meat Association, which produced a report saying decoupling would reduce livestock numbers here.
Brendan Kearney, the consultant who had drawn up the report for the meat factories, argued that the volume of beef available for export would decline by between 22 and 33 per cent, corresponding to a 40-60 per cent reduction in the suckler cow herd which produces beef.
On this basis, the report said, turnover in the beef sector would decline from €573 million to €380 million and employment from 1,900 people to 1,300.
The estimated impact of the reduction in sheep production would lead to a reduction in exports of about 25 per cent, with a corresponding decline in the value of exports and employment in sheepmeat processing for export.
The Commissioner said he did not believe this would happen and told the factories that if they paid good enough prices the Irish farmers would produce the beef for them.
He did, however, please some of the NGOs he was speaking to. He assured consumers that he was going to deliver good, safe food at a reasonable price.
He pleased the environmentally conscious he spoke to by assuring them that, in his plan, the environment had to be protected.
He pleased the animal welfare lobby as well by saying that welfare was at the top of his agenda, and direct payments would be lost to any farmer who did not farm in a welfare-conscious way.
And he made more friends, too, in the sector which hopes to promote rural development, to which more money will be directed and in that way protected from being cut back by demands from the US and other groups which oppose the levels of direct payments to farmers in the Union.
Ireland was the last stop in Dr Fischler's round of EU capitals to sell his reform message, and he left no one in doubt that either he or his package has gone away.