Agriculture and Fisheries Council

Monday 24th March 2014 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)]

The next Agriculture and Fisheries Council will be on 24 March in Brussels. The Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), who is responsible for farming, food and marine environment, will represent the UK. Richard Lochhead MSP will also attend.

There are both fisheries and agriculture items on this month’s agenda.

On agriculture the Commission will present proposals for regulations on the provision and promotion measures for agricultural markets, which are currently under negotiation. There will possibly be a proposal regarding organic production and labelling of organic products. There will be a report from the Commission on mandatory country of origin labelling for meat used as an ingredient, which will be followed by an exchange of views. The report highlights the high costs of legislation on this issue and the European Commission has not proposed any action at this stage: the UK will resist new measures that would add to business costs. There may also be a presentation of a report from the Commission on the reform of the fruit and vegetable sector and a presidency report on the situation in the dairy sector.

On fisheries there will be an exchange of views on the recently concluded mackerel and the EU/Norway bilateral negotiations. This will highlight the agreement that has been reached between the EU, Norway and Faroe islands on the management of north-east Atlantic mackerel. The sand eel total allowable catch (TAC) for 2014 may be adopted at this Council. There is one “any other business” item that has been requested by Spain regarding illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

The presidency has also invited Ministers to a lunch to discuss international agricultural trade issues.