This article is from page 53 of the 2008-04-08 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 53 JPG
AS THE EU treaty referendum draws ever closer, Clare TD, Timmy Dooley (FF) has warned Clare farm- ers that he believes a no vote would seriously harm Clare farming com- munities.
“Treland always has issues to deal with of a national importance in Eu- rope. But we must deal with these is- sues from a position of strength and not from a position of weakness,’ he said.
“A No vote against this treaty would weaken Ireland’s future negotiating capacity at a European level.
For example, the Common Agri- cultural Policy for the period 2009 – 2013 is being reviewed over the
next six to eight months under the forthcoming French Presidency of the European Union.
“From an Irish viewpoint, there are a number of serious issues in the context of this CAP review that we want dealt with during this review OKO en cee
According to Dooley, a no vote against this EU treaty will weaken Ireland’s negotiating hand during this CAP review process.
“I would also like to remind farm- ers that Libertas, which is leading the No campaign with Sinn Fein against this treaty, wants to destroy the Common Agricultural Policy in its entirety,” he continued.
“IT am not satisfied that Peter Man- delson is adequately dealing with
Irish concerns in the context of the Doha round of World Trade Talks. His negotiating approach has been an unbalanced one. The Irish beef industry is the fourth largest beef industry in the world after America, Brazil and Australia.
“We must continue to impress upon Peter Mandelson that his negotiat- ing strategy is simply a wrong one. At the last meeting of EU Agricul- ture Ministers, 20 countries out of 27 spoke out against his negotiating strategy.
“This round of WTO talks has been going on for the past six years in Ge- neva and these talks are not without difficulty.
“No WTO deal can be secured un- less there is an agreement on what 1s
known as non-agricultural market CCAS
“The EU has asked that Brazil, China and India open up their mar- kets to imports of goods and services from the developing world but the ef- forts of the EU have been met with strong opposition from these three countries to date.
“Between the years 2007 and 2013 Irish farmers and rural Irish commu- nities are receiving €12.2 billion in financial support from the European Union for the operation of the annual single farm payment and a variety of other different programmes includ- ing the rural environment protection scheme, on farm investment, re-for- estation initiatives and the disadvan- taged area programme.”