(12 years, 1 month ago)
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The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)
The next Agriculture and Fisheries Council is on Monday 22 October and Tuesday 23 October in Luxembourg. I will be representing the UK, accompanied by the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) who is responsible for natural environment, water and rural affairs. Richard Lochhead MSP and Alun Davies AM will also attend.
The first day will include discussions on both fisheries and agriculture. On fisheries the discussion will cover the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF).
On agriculture there will be further discussion of the CAP reform proposals on direct payments, the single CMO regulation, and possibly the horizontal regulation. There will be a presentation by the Commission on the financing of the CAP.
The Council will also discuss the adoption of a standard setting maximum residual levels for ractopamine by the Codex Alimentarius Commission.
On the second day the Council will return to the EU maritime and fisheries fund. There will also be discussions about Baltic sea stocks, the EU/Norway 2013 catch quota and the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) annual meeting.
One item under any other business has been confirmed, a report on the 32nd Conference of Directors of EU Paying Agencies.