Irish sound a warning note on EU plans for trade talks

Published on Thursday 3 April 2008 22:24

MUCH concern is currently centred on the "health check" of the Common Agricultural Policy, with discussions set to start next month in Brussels.

However, there is likely to be a major impact on farming from the World Trade Organisation's deliberations aimed at liberalising international commerce.

Yesterday, leaders of Irish food and farming made a joint appeal to their government in Dublin to reject the proposals of the EU trade commissioner, Peter Mandelson. The view in Ireland is that if Mandelson has his way during negotiations in late summer, 50,000 jobs will be lost and a further 50,000 farmers will be at serious risk of losing their livelihoods.

The situation in Scotland should Mandelson agree to the removal of most tariffs would be similar, albeit on a lesser scale.

Padraig Walshe, the president of the Irish Farmers Association (IFA), said: "The government must crank up a political and diplomatic campaign in Europe to bring home to the Commission and our partners the irreparable damage that Commissioner Mandelson would inflict on Ireland.

"Otherwise we will face the destruction of the Irish beef industry and of jobs and wealth generation in towns and cities on an unprecedented scale. Farm output could be halved: the total cost to the economy would be 4 billion (3.1bn) with a 2bn loss in exports."

To illustrate the effects of the Mandelson cuts, the IFA has compiled a map showing how many towns would be hit. In County Cork, there are 3,685 jobs under threat in the primary food processing sector. That amounts to more than the combined workforce of the pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline throughout all of Ireland. In Scotland there would be a similar hit on many of the food processing plants, particularly in the North-east.

Walshe added: "Ireland's livestock industry is a vital national interest. Beef is three times as important to Ireland than wine is to France. The government must put down a non-negotiable marker for Mandelson and Commission president Barroso."

He was also highly critical of the efforts of the EU to achieve a balanced deal on industrial goods, services and standards .

"The EU is on the verge of abandoning food security for Europe's 500 million consumers at a time when global supplies are under pressure and stocks are at an all-time low. If Europe's food production capacity is destroyed, it will never be recovered. The deal Mandelson is pursuing represents the worst of all worlds. The greatest threat in the WTO comes from major cuts in import tariffs – 70 per cent for beef a dairy products and from 55 per cent to 70 per cent for lamb, pig meat, poultry and cereals."

Ireland is almost 1,000 per cent self-sufficient in beef and obviously relies heavily on exports, principally to the UK and mainland Europe. The IFA estimate that Irish cattle prices would collapse to 2 (156p) per kg – current values are in the region of 240p per kg while here in Scotland the trade is about 20p higher.

It is also claimed that South America would dominate the market and that every second steak consumed in Europe would be imported while the Irish suckler herd of one million cows would be culled. In the dairy sector, butter would be imported, probably from New Zealand, at 16 per cent below the EU price while there would be a crash in the value of skim milk powder reducing the ex-farm price of milk to at best 18p per litre. The same scenario would evolve in the UK where dairy farmers are currently receiving close to 28p per litre for their milk.

The lamb trade would also suffer with the removal of the quota on imports from Australia and New Zealand while pig and poultry producers would have no protection against imports from countries which do not come close to matching EU standards of production and welfare.

Anna Davies, the director of communications with NFU Scotland, said: "In the short-term, the removal of trade barriers is likely to impact on prices and production in the UK. If more food comes into the country then prices are likely to fall.

"The real key is fair competition and a level playing field. Producers in this country should only have to compete with other products that match our high domestic standards."