Luke Ming Flanagan: Warns Ireland's EU Presidency Could Do Damage

All right, thank you very much and I just want to say I wholeheartedly agree with your last paragraph and it took me a while to learn it but I've learned it. My focus in the European Parliament, I focus on many different areas but I suppose my main focus is the Agriculture Committee, the Fisheries Committee and the Consumer Affairs Committee and in relation to the Agri-Committee, I am the coordinator for our group which means that I get to attend coordinators' meetings and I get an opportunity to get items put on the agenda. It also means I get to speak before any other Irish member at the Agri-Committee and I get twice as long. It doesn't necessarily mean I speak more sense but they give me more time. So at the moment the big thing is the review of the Common Agricultural Policy. I've been lucky enough to be chosen by my group as Barry, as the lead negotiator and I'll be in the same room as Barry when the negotiations are going on and I think that will be a positive because the more people we have from Ireland in the room and I know we'll be representing our groups but we're Irish and we have an eye on what's good for Ireland as well and I think that will be a positive. In the previous CAP programme period from 2020 to 2027, CAP had its own standalone separate regulation and in the current communication proposal, the NRPP will encompass CAP along with other sectoral regulation for the period 2028 to 2034. While the CAP will have its own regulation, it will be under the umbrella of the NRPP and this is important to discuss. This matters because the CAP will be negotiated by Agri-MEPs who have knowledge and an interest in the subject, whether that's for good or bad. The NRPP will be a joint committee procedure with MEPs for Budge, Reggie and Agri, the Budget Committee, the Regional Development Committee and the Agri Committee, all involved with their own competing interests. I ensured that I get to be shadow on both of them because I think that's important and I managed to get that. In my opinion, this joint structure will ultimately lead to a lack of accountability in that who will ultimately be responsible and accountable for the final text of the agreement. There was considerable disquiet with the initial proposal from the Commission when it was released as many key provisions related to CAP were in the overarching NRPP regulation which meant, as I've said, Agri would not have sole competence on these important issues. And after substantial pushback from MEPs across the board, the vast majority of Agri items are now moved back to the CAP regulation. The things that are important for me, there's lots of things important for me on CAP, but three big things are the budget, which has been spoken about, the dissolution of the two pillar structure and the end of the entitlement system. On the budget, we are looking at cuts in excess of 20% and I understand what you have said, Barry, in relation to finding other funds, but I'm just worried that that might be moving stuff from one pocket to the other. We'll see. Ireland will be in an influential position to secure the maximum for CAP and we're here to talk about Ireland's position as having the Presidency. As Barry said, we're MEPs, we don't have any influence on the Council, really, so I think there's an opportunity there for Ireland. But I'm not going to condemn Ireland if we don't get a bigger budget because I actually think there isn't a chance in hell the budget will go up much because the frugal states, who I am delighted Ireland didn't meet with, don't want to increase it because they don't seem to understand that and I didn't understand this before when I got elected as a Eurosceptic, but I have learned that whatever we put into the EU, we might not get the exact same amount back out, but we get access to one hell of a good club. So I would like to see the budget increased, but unfortunately I don't think it's going to be. I'll fight for it and I'll agree with it if it happens. On the two pillar structure, I'm against the abolition of this, however this is probably a done deal. On the end of entitlements, this is a good thing, I think. Payments based on agricultural activity from 25 years ago is not a good basis to go forward. And there's talk about taking money off pensioners, I don't think that's fair. There's talk about not respecting part-time farmers. There are people on the Agri Committee who are part-time farmers, there are people in other jobs who are part-time farmers and as far as I'm concerned, it enhances them as parliamentarians. Fisheries is an area that I cover, I am a member of the Fisheries Committee. Even though our small scale fisheries make up 87.5% of the Irish fleet, we had no dedicated small producer organisation to represent them to 2021 and 2023. IMRO and NIF are those two organisations. I work with them in the European Parliament and I listen to them and listen to what's happening with them. And the main problem that they have is access to funds to develop marketing plans, access to funds to actually promote what they're doing, access to funds to actually help them move on with a new way of fuelling your boats to move away from carbon. But they need more support. And many of their problems, while I work in Europe, the same with farming, many of their problems you could say emanate in Europe. Most of their problems that they have, access to funding, could actually be solved here and we could do it ourselves. Now the final thing I want to talk about and that is defective concretes. I just want to briefly mention the ongoing infringement procedure against Ireland related to the CPR regulation and market surveillance. Last month the Commission issued a pre-closure letter detailing a list of alleged achievements that the Irish Government has managed to convince the Commission in relation to market surveillance. I, and I think anyone who has been involved with the Defective Blocks campaign, should be highly sceptical of these achievements. I would genuinely love if it was true that the structures were now in place to prevent anything remotely similar from happening again, because the devastation that these families are experiencing is something they should never have to endure. The Commission stated in their letter that, as regards the time before 2020, the Irish authorities have informed us that the market surveillance function operated mainly on a reactive basis by the market surveillance authorities, which suggests that in the period prior to 2020, Ireland may indeed have failed to fulfil its market surveillance obligations under the Construction Products Regulation. Great news, you'd think. Not just the bare minimum reactive market surveillance. But as late as April of this year, and I'm nearly finished, Donegal County Council confirmed that market surveillance inspection and testing is generally carried out on a reactive basis only. So we have asked the Commission to keep this infringement procedure open until the Building Standards Regulatory Authority is legally established and operational. The recommended staffing level of 500 professionals is reached. The enforcement model moves from reactive, because this is the law, to a complaint-based model to a proactive independent testing regime. I'll continue to advocate to keep this infringement procedure open, to hold the government to account and to ensure it doesn't happen. For me, I'm proud to be Irish, but I have to say, on the three issues that I mentioned, I would be more worried about the damage Ireland would do with the influence that it has as the President than what it can be done for us. I wish I didn't have to say this, but that's what's in front of me as evidence.