CAP Health Check Deal – The Overnight Blog From the Press Room
By Roger Waite - Roger is editor of AGRA FACTS, the Brussels-based newsletter on EU agriculture policy, and is a Journalism Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. “Analysis from Brussels” is posted exclusively at FarmPolicy.com.
EU Agriculture Ministers reached agreement last week on the so-called CAP Health Check. The deal was finalised at 8.30 in the morning after 17 hours of non-stop negotiations. While “non-stop” may sound like hard work, in practice there was a lot of sitting around and large volumes of coffee beer were consumed by all – officials from Member States, from the Commission, from the Council secretariat, the security guards, those lobbyists, who managed to wangle their way into the building, and the media. For those journalists following the talks – and yes, there were 20-30 of us who kept going all night – most managed to prepare an array of detailed articles, so that we could finish them reasonably promptly once the final paper was released. In order to show that it was not all dull, I thought I’d provide an “off the record” look at some of the lighter issues raised in the course of the negotiations.
Bad Start
I’ve finally got into the Council press area – some 45 minutes later than intended – because of the demonstration by tobacco producers in front of the building. The press release I’ve now received talks of 10 000 protestors, which normally means that numbers are roughly 2 000. That tallies with the numbers that I saw. To be fair, I saw different groups from France, Italy, and Greece – with each group wearing different caps to identify themselves. The mood was good. I saw a couple offering to exchange their caps with the police, who took it all in good heart. My sympathy towards these farmers started to dim when I got close to the Council entrance, however. Their presence had caused the main entrance to be blocked, and so I now faced a fight to get back out of the crowd that I had just fought through! And then a 5 minute walk (and 20 minute security delay) by going round the other side of the building. Alas (for me), just at that moment, the farmers lit a fire of tobacco leaves in order to underline their grievances. By the time I passed it, the smoke was so strong that I nearly suffocated as I walked past – and the stink of tobacco remained with me until long after the final press conference. I can’t understand why they’re here in the first place. The 2004 reform agreed to decouple all payments from 2010 onwards, and Commissioner Fischer Boel had made clear all the way through the Health Check negotiations that there was no chance of any change to that reform. The European taxpayer is simply not willing to subsidise any form of “coupled” tobacco payment any more, she keeps insisting. (For the record, the final deal included a clause which doesn’t actually mention the word tobacco, but which gives Member States a bit more flexibility to pay additional degressive support over 3 years to help tobacco producers restructure.)
Sweepstake
Among the press corps specialising in agriculture policy – the “Ag Hacks” as we sometimes call ourselves – there is a tradition of holding a sweepstake on how long the damn negotiations are going to last. After a quick discussion, we agreed that this time we would revert to true betting – a €5 stake – with agreement that the moment that counted would be the start of the final press conference. (At last December’s wine reform, we just did it for the honour!) We also agreed that we would be able to see the first compromise paper before betting. As Michael Mann, the Commission’s tall handsome spokesman, won last December’s sweepstake, we were keen that he was one of the first tipsters this time around so that we could all be in the clear about his thoughts. “The deal will finish at 7.30am, but the press conference will not start till 9.02 because French Minister Barnier will want to wait until the French TV news journalists are there”, he predicted confidently, writing 9.02 onto the sheet. There then followed about 10 various tips from the hardened troop, varying from 4am till 10.30am. I was one of the most optimistic with my 5.11am forecast, but I was confident. All the sticky issues can be quite easily resolved, can’t they?
Anyway, I don’t need to tell you what happened, do I? The final deal was agreed at 8.30ish…and the press conference started at 8.50ish.
Decoupled “Hopes”
Oh dear! I have just noticed a typo in what we published on the first compromise text. Some 3 hours after it was sent out to subscribers, I see that AGRA FACTS has formally decoupled all European “hopes” from the start of 2010! Obviously, it was the “hops” payments that have to be decoupled, and it’s just as originally proposed. With Germany about the only Member State that still “couples” the support payment, the whole issue is totally uncontroversial. But now I’ve gone and ruined things! Looks like we’ll have to write a correction now. Fancy calling for hopes to be decoupled!
In the ensuing hours my embarrassment was eased by philosophical debate about what “hopes” should be coupled to. One friend even suggested that if they were coupled to fears, then maybe decoupling was not such a bad thing after all.
A Man Called Hilary
EU Farm ministers meet once a month in Brussels – apart from April, June October when the meetings take place in…Luxembourg. As a result, the camaraderie personal contact among the Ministers is more marked than in almost any other Council, and all of them are on first name terms and use the “tu” form of “you” in those languages which make a distinction between “you” and “you”.
In the UK, however, the Ministry of Agriculture has long since been eaten up in to the Department of Environment, Food, Rural Affairs (DEFRA), run by the so-called Environment Secretary, who tends to concentrate on the politically most important issues in his remit – delegating Farm Council appearances to a Junior Minister. To be fair, this probably does make sense, but the lack of familiarity appears to have backfired slightly in the corridors upstairs. We are hearing that more than one Minister has now referred to UK Agriculture Minister Hilary Benn as “Ben”, assuming that he is called Benjamin because no man (surely) could be called Hilary!
MFB Masterclass
EU Farm Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel can regularly be relied on to try to improve the English language by translating Danish idioms. There is a wonderful phrase about having a monkey on her shoulder which she will occasionally come up with. We’re told that it means something similar to “carrying the can”. There was also the time when her English was too good, and she said in a press conference that she was “pissed off” with newspaper reports that lots of CAP money goes to golf courses. She’s obviously been told off about that one because every now again she will answer a provocative question at a press conference by saying “I know what I’d like to say…”, accompanied by her charming grandmother’s smile.
Anyway, a new gem has emerged tonight. In the course of one trilateral meeting, she is reported to have asked the Minister to show extra flexibility otherwise the whole negotiations will be a “dead herring”! Makes changes from “damp squib” or “dead duck”, doesn’t it?
To Vote Or Not To Vote
There has been a lot of talk since the Council finished about the “quasi unanimity” that French Minister Michel Barnier claims to have observed when he chaired the final session. In reality, the Ministers were not formally asked to vote, merely to present their reactions to the final compromise paper. Five Ministers indicated that they could not sign up to the paper, it seems – but this would, under no circumstances have been sufficient to block the necessary qualified majority required for it to be agreed. One officials has told me that the opponents were Latvia, Estonia, Czech Republic, Slovakia and UK – although it remains unclear whether they would vote against or abstain. In reality, the Council services will now tidy up the texts, i.e. incorporate the changes from the final compromise into the proposals that didn’t change. These will probably be done in English, it seems – which is a first from a French Presidency! Once this single text is clarified, it will be translated into the EU’s 23 different languages. And checked by the jurist-linguists for each different language. And will formally be voted through another Council meeting, probably in February or March. It’s then that we’ll see if the dissidents voted against or only abstained.

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