Mairead McGuinness is an MEP from Ireland and a senior member of the Agriculture Committee. She’s also the new chair ofLUFPG, the informal ‘CAP Reform’ group of MEPs. It appears her website has been hacked by TeAm MoStA from Algeria.
… Read the rest
Mairead McGuinness MEP’s website hacked
Mairead McGuinness is an MEP from Ireland and a senior member of the Agriculture Committee. She’s also the new chair ofLUFPG, the informal ‘CAP Reform’ group of MEPs. It appears her website has been hacked by TeAm MoStA from Algeria.
Dairy sector measures do not set pulses racing
4000 dairy farmers with 900 tractors demonstrated outside an EU agricultural ministers meeting in Luxembourg yesterday calling for more aid for the sector. Inside, ministers faced a Franco-German memorandum backed by 20 member states with a series of demands for market distorting measures. In the event the concessions the Commission made are probably the least they could have got away with in the circumstances. Farmers’ organisation COPA immediately condemned them as insufficient.… Read the rest
UK watchdog slams farm payments mess
In one of its most critical ever reports, the National Audit Office has slammed the way in which the Rural Payments Agency has administered Single Farm Payments to farmers. It accused the agency of showing ‘scant regard to protecting public money’. The agency has wasted around £700m, the capital equivalent of building thirty secondary schools.… Read the rest
Fischer Boel's 'last feather' plucked
Earlier in the month I wrote that Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel was holding the line against protesting dairy farmers and a clutch of national agriculture ministers looking for more aid for their troubled farmers. It looks as though I spoke too soon. At this month’s farm council, Commissioner Fischer Boel found a further 280 million euro from the 2010 budget to give to dairy farmers, in addition to measures announced last month.… Read the rest
Fischer Boel’s ‘last feather’ plucked
Earlier in the month I wrote that Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel was holding the line against protesting dairy farmers and a clutch of national agriculture ministers looking for more aid for their troubled farmers. It looks as though I spoke too soon. At this month’s farm council, Commissioner Fischer Boel found a further 280 million euro from the 2010 budget to give to dairy farmers, in addition to measures announced last month.… Read the rest
Who will be next agriculture commissioner?
The next agricultural commissioner will have the chance to shape the future development of the CAP. So who will it be?… Read the rest
Fischer Boel holds the line on milk
Regular readers of this blog will know by now that I don’t count myself among Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel’s greatest fans. I think she fudged what turned out to be a very costly reform of sugar subsidies, bears a share of the responsibility for the collapse of the Doha Round, missed a golden opportunity to reform the CAP during the ‘health check’ and – perhaps above all – has failed to articulate an intellectually robust vision for the future of European agriculture policy. She is stepping down soon and this task will fall to her successor. However, I will give credit where it’s due and she’s doing a fine job of holding the line against protesting dairy farmers seeking more government aid.… Read the rest