Taoiseach Micheál Martin has promised to fight for farmers’ funding as discussions over the EU’s future €2 trillion budget finally get under way.
The leaders of the EU’s 27 member states including Micheál Martin are in Cyprus where they have just begun a first serious discussion about the EU’s budget at leaders’ level.
The European Union’s next long-term budget, the Multi-annual Financial Framework (MFF) is due to start in 2028.
The budget funds everything from new roads and railways, scientific research, the Erasmus student exchange programme and subsidies for farmers.
But for the first time, the European Commission has proposed to merge the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) into funding for other sectors. The new mega fund, with €865 billion will be called the National and Regional Partnership Plans.
The idea has gone down badly with farmers who fear that CAP funding will be syphoned off for other industries.
Speaking ahead of the meeting with his European counterparts, Martin emphasised that protecting the interests of rural Ireland remains a non-negotiable priority for the State.
“We want a strong common agricultural policy for our farmers and for rural Ireland”, he said.
“We will negotiate very strongly on on behalf of farmers and on behalf of rural Ireland and agriculture in particular because it’s the one major part of the overall EU budget where we derive substantial funding.”
There is huge pressure on the EU budget because of other political needs, particularly a desire from many member states to ramp up defence spending.
But the EU also needs funds to pay back €637 billion spent by member states, including Ireland, recovering from the Covid crisis.
Repayments on those loans are due to start in 2028.
Ireland will play a significant role in the negotiations for the future budget when the state takes over the rotating presidency of the European Council in July of this year.
The Taoiseach warned last night that he expected the budget process to be “challenging”.
Beyond agricultural funding, the government is bracing for a “hard battle” regarding how the EU funds itself, known as “own resources”.
Martin has already explicitly ruled out any concessions that would impact Ireland’s corporate tax regime.
“We would be very strongly opposed to any move on the corporate tax base. I don’t think that that would be acceptable in terms of the own resources agenda,” he said ahead of this morning’s meeting.
As Ireland prepares to take the chair, the Taoiseach has been meeting separately with many of the leaders on the sidelines of the summit.
“I’m meeting the various prime ministers in advance of the European Union presidency to just understand their individual priorities”, the Taoiseach said.
Despite these challenges, he expressed optimism that the removal of recent “obstructionism” at the European Council level would make the path toward a final agreement easier than in previous years.