From Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
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Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue, has welcomed today’s discussion by the CAP Stakeholder Consultative Committee of the observations letter in respect of Ireland’s draft CAP Strategic Plan 2023-2027. The observations letter was received by his department from the European Commission on 31 March 2022.
Commenting after the meeting, which was chaired by the department, the Minister said:
“Today’s exchange of views on the Commission’s observations on Ireland’s draft Plan was a very useful and informative exercise and will help to inform my department’s ongoing engagement with the Commission as we move through the approval process. Indeed, today’s meeting was the 30th occasion on which this Committee has discussed either the reform process or the development of the Plan itself, which is symbolic of the very extensive stakeholder consultation that has taken place over the last two and a half years or so. The members of the Committee continue to make a very significant contribution to this process, which I am happy to take the opportunity to acknowledge.”
The Minister noted that the Commission’s observations letter was another important milestone in the process. He said:
“My officials will engage very intensively with the Commission services on the content of the observations letter over the coming weeks in order to provide the necessary clarifications. It is important that we progress in a timely manner in order to ensure that we are ready to commence the implementation of the Plan on 1 January 2023.”
The Minister also noted that the correspondence between the European Commission and the department has been published on the department’s website, at www.gov.ie/cap, as has the Minister’s correspondence with Commissioner Wojciechowski on the matter.
Concluding, the Minister confirmed that his department will continue to consult stakeholders through the CAP Consultative Committee, and bilaterally, as the approval process unfolds. It will also be working through the observations with the European Commission with a view to ensuring that Ireland’s CAP Strategic Plan can be approved before the Summer break.
More information on Ireland’s CAP Strategic Plan, including the Commission’s observations letter, the department’s response, and the letters exchanged between Minister McConalogue and Commissioner Wojciechowski, are available at https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/76026-common-agricultural-policy-cap-post-2020/
Department officials are currently in regular bilateral discussion with the European Commission to finalise the Plan. The approval process will be a continuation of the structured dialogue with the Commission which has proven to be very effective to date. The officials will provide the necessary clarifications and explanations as requested.
The observations letter marks another important milestone in the development of Ireland’s CAP Strategic Plan for the period 2023 to 2027. Ireland is one of the nineteen Member States who submitted their plans ahead of the statutory deadline of 1 January 2022, and to whom the Commission is now responding following an assessment by all of the relevant Commission services, including those responsible for agriculture, climate and the environment.
The observations are lengthy, covering the three general objectives of the CAP, the nine specific objectives, the cross-cutting knowledge, innovation and digitalisation objective, the strategic focus of the Plan and the individual interventions that Ireland has proposed. They comprise a mixture of high-level and more detailed, technical observations. The Commission has also asked all Member States to review their Plans in the context of the impacts arising from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the need to strengthen the sector’s resilience while also achieving greater environmental sustainability.