Luke Ming FLANAGAN

Policy topics Luke Ming FLANAGAN is active on

What Luke Ming FLANAGAN has said (80)

• 2026-06-17 “We already have an abundance of legislation. We keep having reports, hearings, and debates. Yet still in the Eurobarometer published this week, adolescents and parents agree that the action that would help most to improve adolescent mental health well-being online is better implementation and enforcement of existing rules and regulations. But as a parent, I'd have to say the best protection for children is for as long as possible, and as long as possible, I mean it, to keep them offline. And I say that as a parent of a 23, a 21 year old, and now an 11 year old. The 11 year old is now getting the benefits of my experience. And the best thing is to have them running, jumping, skipping, painting, sewing, cycling, skating, swimming, knitting, baking, digging, planting, growing, kicking a ball, hitting a snooker ball, throwing a stick, playing with the cat, playing with the dog, and being outside as often as possible. But, unfortunately, that isn't possible if we're all working 60 hours a week. Thank you very much, colleagues.”
  EU policy on mental health
• 2026-03-25 “Answer given by Mr Várhelyi on behalf of the European Commission 10.6.2026 Written question Regulation (EC) No 396/2005 on maximum residue levels (MRLs) of pesticides [1] imposes Member States to carry out controls to ensure that food placed on the market is compliant with the legal limits. The European Food Safety Authority ( EFSA) collects the information from national and EU-coordinated control programmes and publishes the EU report on pesticide residues in food [2] . In 2024, 86 449 samples were analysed. 96% contained no residues or residues below or equal to the MRLs. Non-compliant samples (1.8%) triggered sanctions or enforcement actions. Out of 38 169 samples analysed for the presence of imazalil, including fruits with their peel [3] , only 35 contained residues above the MRL. This confirms that the food available to EU consumers is safe. The MRLs for imazalil were”
  Food labelling harmonisation at EU level · Maximum residue levels
• 2026-02-17 “E-000668/2026 Answer given by Mr Hansen on behalf of the European Commission The year 2025 was marked by historically high raw milk prices which, together with increased output, resulted in the highest value of milk production ever recorded. This occurred against a backdrop of declining feed costs leading to the highest gross margin indexes on record. From August onwards, milk deliveries expanded rapidly in several major producing Member States. In parallel, prices for dairy commodities - which had remained at historically high levels during the first half of 2025 - started a downward correction from September 2025 onwards. This decline in commodity prices was transmitted to raw milk prices with a certain time lag and at a smaller magnitude. Domestic and global demand for dairy products has remained robust. The most recent data from dairy commodity markets point towards a stabilisation and gradual improvement in market prices. Against this backdrop, at present the Commission is not considering the introduction of a voluntary milk production reduction scheme. There are no specific indicators to trigger the introduction of exceptional market measures. The Commission acts on the basis of its ongoing monitoring of market developments, including milk and dairy prices, production trends, and trade flows. It also takes into account the views of experts, Member States, and stakeholders in the relevant fora.”
  Direct payments to farmers (pillar 1)
• 2025-07-17 “E-002978/2025 Answer given by Executive Vice-President Mînzatu on behalf of the European Commission The informal carers’ toolkit will take the form of an online training course on self-care and care competences for informal caregivers of older people with care needs. The toolkit is being developed by the World Health Organization in close collaboration with Eurocarers – which acts as a voice for informal carers bringing together relevant organisations, universities and research institutes 1 - with financial support from the Commission. It will be released in autumn of 2025 with the aim to contribute to the implementation of the European Care Strategy 2 , and to support the implementation of the Council Recommendation on access to high-quality long-term care 3 . The course will build on numerous resources for informal carers, identified through a mapping of national training materials, a review of the specialised literature, and consultations with academic experts, to understand what information can be useful for all informal carers. The Commission is currently working on a series of initiatives which will have an impact on carers. These include the Quality Jobs Roadmap, the new Action Plan to implement the European Pillar of Social Rights, the Gender Equality Strategy and the Anti-Poverty Strategy. Other recently delivered initiatives, such as the Union of Skills 4 are also relevant in this context. The Commission also aims to create a more coherent framework for addressing longterm care workforce challenges, including facilitating the recognition of skills and qualifications, supporting skilling and career progression and improving working conditions. This set of initiatives will contribute to improving access to affordable high-quality long-term care, including the support for, recognition and protection of informal carers. 1 https://eurocarers.org/. 2 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_22_5169. 3 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=oj:JOC_2022_476_R_0001. 4 https://commission.europa.eu/topics/eu-competitiveness/union-skills_en.”
  Support for families · EU policy on aging workforce and pensions
• 2025-04-01 “E-001332/2025 Answer given by High Representative/Vice-President Kallas on behalf of the European Commission The EU reiterates its strong opposition to Israel's settlement policy and actions taken in this context, including demolitions, forced displacement and settler violence. Widespread demolitions of Palestinian homes and structures by the Israeli authorities, coupled with a rapid expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank through the advancement of a record number of housing units during 2025, are seriously undermining the viability of the two-state solution. The EU is gravely concerned that the occupation of the Palestinian territory that began in 1967 continues to this day, underlining in particular that the International Court of Justice has found that the continued presence of Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory is unlawful. The EU strongly condemns the demolitions of structures funded by the EU or its Member States and expects that Israel makes good the damage in accordance with international law 1 . The EU is concerned about the escalating violence in the West Bank, with the ongoing Israeli military operation against armed militants leading to the destruction of large parts of refugee camps and the evacuation of some 40 000 Palestinians from their homes. The EU recalls the utmost importance of ensuring the protection of all civilians in military operations. The EU is committed to a just, comprehensive and lasting political resolution of the IsraeliPalestinian conflict based on the two-state solution, with the State of Israel and an independent, democratic, contiguous, sovereign, and viable State of Palestine  , living side by side in peace and security and mutual recognition, and with Jerusalem serving as the future capital of both states. The EU is engaging with both sides to achieve this goal. 1 The EU’s position for the 13th EU-Israel Association Council https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-6511-2025-INIT/en/pdf.  This designation shall not be construed as recognition of a State of Palestine and is without prejudice to the individual positions of the Member States on this issue.”
  Relations with Israel - Palestine
• 2025-03-05 “E-000942/2025 Answer given by Executive Vice-President Mînzatu on behalf of the European Commission Informal carers, mainly women, face significant challenges due to the disproportionate burden of unpaid care responsibilities, lack of formal care services and insufficient recognition for their crucial roles. This can have negative impact on their well-being and work-life balance, and lead to career breaks, part-time work, or early exit from the labour market, which impacts lifetime earnings and future economic security. The European Care Strategy 1 and the Council Recommendation 2 on access to high-quality long-term care provide a framework for reforms and investments to improve care services, address workforce challenges, and support informal carers. Implementation actions at EU and national levels, include numerous reforms targeting informal carers and a toolkit for supporting informal carers. Building on these, the Commission will work on creating a more coherent framework for addressing long-term care workforce challenges, including facilitating the recognition of skills and qualifications, supporting skills development and career progression, and improving working conditions. The planned policy initiatives, including Quality Jobs Roadmap, Pillar Action Plan and the Anti-Poverty Strategy, as well as the recently delivered ones, such as Union of Skills 3 , will contribute to this objective and strengthen long-term care systems. In 2027, the Commission will prepare a report on the implementation of the Council Recommendation. 1 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_22_5169 2 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=oj:JOC_2022_476_R_0001 3 https://commission.europa.eu/topics/eu-competitiveness/union-skills_en”
  Support for families · EU policy on aging workforce and pensions · Gender roles, equality and inclusion
• “Thank you very much. And I think this is good news. We often get a lot of bad news around here, but this is an improvement. And I would like to congratulate the rapporteur and the shadow rapporteurs and everyone who was involved in this. I would like to have been a bit more involved, but unfortunately the review of the other unfair trading practices regulation in the CMO was also being negotiated at the same time. But I have to say, it turned out to be fairly non-contentious this file. So it's a question of where do you pick your fight? So in the other file there was a lot more to fight about. So on this I think we have got a good result. And it's good to know that you listened to us as a group. We demanded protection for suppliers outside of the European Union, and we've got that. One of the positive elements, elements of the agreement is establishing mechanisms for mutual assistance and coordination among national enforcement authorities. And a core element of the legislation is to put an end to the cross-border, unfair trading practices within their territory. Member states with more ambitious approaches in fighting, Utps can now apply new rules to investigate and stop unfair practices prohibited under national law. There are many, many positives to what's been agreed here. It's not going to solve all problems. I hope we get a strong agreement on the other UTP legislation and together we'll get something hopefully for farmers that all we get a fair wage for turning up for work and that's not too much to ask. Thank you very much.”
  EU policy on farmer–buyer relations in the agri-food supply chain
• “But the question is how will that be implemented as well? But I think everyone is in agreement here that no matter what job that you're in, you should get paid for it. You shouldn't go to work on a day and come home with less money than you had in your pocket at the start of the day. So the question also has to be asked. There's a lot of mention of money, and there's a lot of mention of taking monies from certain areas. It brings us around to the question, Will there be more money for agriculture in general in the next budget? And finally, finally, when it comes to unfair trading practices, I'll say it again. All of this is positive, but I fear that in one way we're closing one bad door and we're opening another bad door, a door to unfair trading practices from Mercosur. And what control will we have over that?”
  Trade relations with Mercosur
• “Thank you very much. Um, as many of the previous speakers have said, And maybe it suggests maybe the penny has dropped around here, that we've got to learn from past crises. And we didn't seem to learn from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We haven't learned from the Covid crisis, and it looks like we're not willing to learn here now. And the problem with saying, we'll have no problem getting food because we're a rich continent and anything we can't get, we can import it is that we end up leaving ourselves open to blackmail. And when I say we don't seem to have learned a lesson, we're now going along signing a deal on Mercosur. We're one of the partners to this deal carries around a chainsaw as a kind of a political motto. And we at the moment, we have someone in Brazil who we can trust. But only three years ago, four years ago, we had someone who I don't know what anyone was is saying about Mr. Bolsonaro at the time? It's quite clear he wouldn't be a good partner. So we don't seem to learn. But apparently Mercosur is going to be different. Well, it might not be different in a couple of years time. And if we continue down this road, people who produce food such as suckler farmers in the area that I come from, will not be able to compete with such a model.”
  Trade relations with Mercosur
• “Thank you very much. The question here, is there a lesson in a small increase in production leads to a massive reduction in price. And the reason I mentioned this is because we are supposed to be placated on Mercosur. When the commission tells us, oh, it's no big deal. It's only a really small percentage of an increase in supply of beef into Europe. And we're told it's only about 1%. And then when people say, well, we're talking about high value cuts, it could be up to 6 or 7%, we're told. Oh, no, no, it's only a small amount. Yet you get a rise in milk production of 2% and you see a massive crash in the prices. Is there a lesson here? Surely there is a lesson here that it isn't quite as simple as saying it's only a small increase in volume. And I'm just wondering what difference will our work on the CMO ultimately down the line mean for farmers when it comes when it comes to getting a decent price for their product? We've just seen agreement at Trilogues on contracts for farmers. I'm just wondering, what difference will it make in this environment? I hope it will. I think there was good work done on it, but what will the real world, real world effects of it be on farmers and not just on farmers, farmers who spend this money in the local economy?”
  Trade relations with Mercosur
• “Um, as all the other previous speakers have said, um, we don't have a lot of detail on this, and the clock is fast ticking. The commission knows this, and we just don't have the information that we need. And, uh, I'm in favor of solidarity. But at times, solidarity can pull you in one direction and pull you in the other direction. Showing solidarity to one person could mean hanging another person out to dry. So we've got to be careful on that, and you have to be particularly careful here in the commission or if you're in this job on absolutely massive money making decisions where you punch beat your chest and you say, I'm showing solidarity and it doesn't affect your pocket in any way. It's awfully easy to show solidarity there. So when we're showing solidarity and we should, because this country is under attack by brutal colonialism from Mr. Putin, we should show them solidarity. But we should also show solidarity to the small scale farmers, the small scale farming model, and look at what's coming down the line in the future. Because 300 hectares is a big farm in Ireland. You wouldn't see it on the map in Ukraine. And that's not to criticize them, but that has to be taken into account because otherwise you'll end up with no solidarity and everyone pulling against each other.”
  Agricultural trade: Ukraine imports
• “When it comes to childcare, etc. that shouldn't be happening and there should be access to childcare historically, because succession went to a man, there is a problem with access to land, but there is common problems as well. And one of the big common problems between men and women that we will have, and it was mentioned by the other one of the other speakers, is less money in the new cap. We can come in here and there's less and less money every year. And the more and more they turn this into a talking shop. Because eventually, if we are only talking about something that we can't produce any money to do something about, at the end of the day, well then we are we need to make sure that doesn't happen. Finally, we've got to look at trade deals, the impact on trade deals on suckler farmers, small scale farmers and women in the west of Ireland, and likewise on women farmers in the dairy industry, small scale farmers in Mercosur who are going to be in trouble because of this deal. And remember when you say it's good for dairy farmers here, if you claim you're a feminist, you're not a feminist, because if it affects women in South America and you don't care about it, well, then you ain't no feminist.”
  Gender roles, equality and inclusion · Trade relations with Mercosur
• “(17:33:49 – 17:36:25): Thank you very much. And I I repeat what the last speaker said, it it is a shame that there aren't more people here because it's a very important topic. And if it's properly implemented, article 17 has the potential to be a game changer for small scale fisheries because proper implementation should mean more equitable allocation of valuable quota species to the small scale fleet, including measures to ensure that they can actually access these fishing opportunities. However, I continue to hear from small scale fisheries that they have difficulties assess accessing these fishing opportunities due to quota allocations being concentrated in the industrial fleet. So I would really welcome the commission's communication and Vadimecum on the application of article 16 and 17 and the 8 good practice suggestions for member states. I also appreciate that the communication highlights, and I quote, a degree of inertia in the way that fishing opportunities are allocated by member states. Well, how true that is because this is what I'm hearing over and over again from small scale fishers. It's also important that the communication recognizes the need to use article 17 to promote sustainable fishing practices and to support small scale and coastal fisheries and invites member states to increase transparency. But how can we ensure that this will actually happen in practice when more than a decade on, article 17 has not been effectively implemented to achieve its aim of fishing opportunities allocated according to social, environmental, and economic criteria. And I have a number of questions. What are the next steps to ensure these good practice suggestions are followed by member states? How will you encourage and convince them? Given the inertia observed so far, how do you expect the allocation of fishing opportunities to change in the coming years? Is the commission prepared to take new and concrete measures to ensure access such as linking funding to effective implementation of article 17 by member states? And finally, at last month's AgriFish Council, commissioner Cadiz presented to member states the result of the implementation dialogue on small scale and coastal communities. He mentions the allocation of quotas as 1 of the most sensitive and pressing issues raised by small scale fishers. How have member states reacted to this? Will they finally address this concern? Thank you very much. Thank you so much, mister Flanagan. Before I pass the floor again to the commission, I will make my intervention a bit in Portuguese. Indeed,”
  Environmental regulation of fisheries
• “Thank you, Commissioner, for coming here today. I have five questions for you. How does the Commission justify its stated objective of strengthening food security, sovereignty and food security in an increasingly unstable geopolitical environment? And on the other hand, a trade strategy that exposes European farmers to structurally unfair competition from third countries that do not respect equivalent environmental. And this one for you. Sanitary and social standards. It seems like a total contradiction. Also, what is the commission going to do to end the moral trade in pesticides that are banned in the EU because we know they are harmful to human health and the environment, but still manufactured in the EU and exported to third countries. You touched on that, but a more thorough answer will be needed. How does the commission assess the health risks linked to agricultural products from third countries, particularly regarding pesticide residues and other chemical substances in food. In a context where the acceleration of free trade agreements is increasing import volumes, and it's going to obviously put pressure on resources. Also, what effective controls are carried out to ensure compliance with maximum residue, limits on imported products? And what is the Commission's legal responsibility to ensure the protection of public health in this area. And there are many reputable studies carried out to demonstrate that pesticide residues of banned substances are being imported into EU foodstuffs. And you spoke about this, how do you concretely apply the precautionary principle to take into account the cumulative and long term effects of chemical residues to which European consumers are exposed, particularly in the context of growing and increasingly difficult to control volume of imported food products. And finally, how much money do you actually think would really need to do its job properly to be totally independent? Because, you know, we make choices on what we spend on budgets. And I think there would be support among the European citizens to spend money on an area that guaranteed they wouldn't end up dead because of what they're eating.”
  Pesticides & trade
• “Thank you very much. First, I just want to welcome the Irish Beef and Lamb Association to this meeting. These people are affected by this more than anyone else. I'd also like to thank the European Court of Auditors for always, always telling the truth without any political angles on it. They're like a speedometer on the car. You might like to speed, you might like to drive fast, but you can't deny it. If the speedometer is there and they tell us the truth. And if this was a film that was being reviewed by them, they would be giving it a one star review and it wouldn't even make it to the cinema. But what the commissioner is telling us is I think it might get an Oscar. We are told by the European Court of Auditors that it is unaudited. The question is simplification for who. We were told the last time around by Phil Hogan that that cap was simplification. People seem to have forgot that there's broad targets, weak indicators, nowhere, no way to compare national and regional regional plans for from a value for money point of view.”
  Accounting and auditing of EU budget
• “(17:36:28 – 17:38:51): this is 1 of the most important issues for coastal fishing, but also for fishing in general. The allocation of fishing quotas are fundamental to ensure the sustainability of the sector and its economic survival. I recognize that article 17 has been interpreted in different ways. And as a result, these guidelines are welcome. So thank you to the commission for your presentation. Indeed, what we have heard is that in some cases, there is no specific criteria based on the distribution of quotas arising from negotiations at the last minute in the council. And as a result, the sector has been marginalized when it comes to these definitions, but these things happen. However, I would like to understand, the the following question. So are you going to increase allocations for small scale fisheries? What about the capacity to react? Will that be done through an increase in quotas? It has been said that there are some difficulties because there's a part of quotas for industrial fishing. So will there be a possibility to increase those quotas? And if so, how? Then there's recreational fishing when it comes to distribution and allocation of quotas. Will those be included in this distribution for small scale fishing? This is a process of transparency, so we need to ensure the 3 different pillars of sustainability to ensure that small scale fisheries can survive. We want to guarantee, the maintenance of these traditional activities. Thank you. For 2 minutes. For it's for 5 minutes, sorry, to address the questions and comments raised by the members. The floor is yours.”
  Environmental regulation of fisheries
• “(10:25:52 – 10:26:43): Yeah. Unfortunately, Arash can't be here. He's doing his bit for generation renewal. He's looking after his newborn baby, so he wants me to speak on his behalf if that's okay. This initiative on generation renewal is vital for the future of our agricultural model and our food sovereignty. European agriculture is facing a major demographic and attractiveness crisis. The average age of farmers is now 57. And over the past 13 years, the number of farms run by people 35 has fallen by nearly 50%. At the same time, the barriers to setting up farming continue to mount. In this context context, the direction of the future cap 2028 to 2034 is crucial. A reduction in the agricultural budget along with the weakening of startup aid and”
  Agricultural funding
• “Yeah. Apologies. Arash can't be here. When the European Court of Auditors say something that we agree with in this committee, we carry them on a chair into the room and we say, thank God you exist. Aren't you wonderful. And when they agreed with this on the proposal for the Common Agricultural Policy and the NRP or the Nppf. We were delighted with them. Well, their opinion on this tracking mechanism is that, well, in a nutshell, it's a total and utter joke. They noted that when, alongside sectoral funding programmes, it doesn't provide a clear, direct link between funding and actual results. When it comes to traceability and accountability and cut to the chase, they said it was a joke. They said when it came to data reliability, likewise, it was a bit of a joke. So obviously we've got to improve it. Unless of course, this time the European Court of Auditors aren't right all of a sudden because we just don't disagree with them anymore. And to me, the European Court of Auditors always come in here and they tell us the truth. They tell us they're like the speedometer. They tell us how fast we're going. We might not like it, but that is the truth. So a lot of what a MEP is proposing makes a lot of sense. And to me, we had a lot.”
  Accounting and auditing of EU budget
• “Yeah, I'm standing in for a rash. He's our shadow rapporteur on this. European organic farmers are already under economic pressure, rising costs, market volatility and declining purchasing power. This proposal then should reinforce and not weaken their position. The proposal extends the recognition of equivalent third countries. However, equivalence does not mean identical standards, and as other speakers have said, the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union clarified the limits of equivalence regarding the use of organic references and the EU logo. We must avoid a situation where EU producers compete with imports produced under less stringent or different control systems. Consumer confidence in the EU organic logo is one of our strongest assets. If labeling rules for imported products are adapted, they must be fully transparent and easily understandable. Also, in relation to fair competition, European farmers comply with strict production, animal welfare and control requirements. It is unacceptable to ask more of EU producers while allowing imports under lighter verification systems. Fair competition requires robust pre-entry controls, not just administrative simplification and at the end of the day, the public want good food and if it isn't good food, you're not going to placate them by saying, well, it was produced in a simple way. Don't mind if you're sick. However, simplification must not translate into weaker safeguards. We will therefore advocate for stronger control mechanisms for imported organic products, enhanced traceability requirements, clear differentiation in labelling where appropriate, and regular monitoring and review of third country equivalents. Thank you.”
  Import of agri-food products in the EU
• “I heard the, uh, the person who came in for the EAS yesterday saying that they had a problem with aggressive payments. To me, digressive payments are a good idea and okay, it will affect some people on payments and people will get less. But the people who are getting more have always have, will always have had to do with less. So it's just evening it up and if there was more money in the pot, people losing money wouldn't be a problem. You mentioned the fact that coupling, uh, would lead to an uneven playing field. I actually think it possibly could. But what other tools could be used to support this vulnerable sector that will be better than a couple payments. And also on the issue of who is in the greatest need. I mean, this is how long is a piece of string on steroids here? Who is in the greatest need? Who will decide that to me? Who is in the greatest need are small scale farmers who put a lot of money back into the local economy. Provide an awful lot of services that are required. To me, those are the ones who are in the greatest need, who is in the greatest need? How do we decide that? That's the question, really, I have.”
  Direct payments to farmers (pillar 1)
• “(09:52:40 – 09:55:56): Thank you very much and very interesting information that you're you're bringing to us, and I think it's really important. And I'm representing the left, but I I I I suppose I I also primarily try and represent my country, Ireland, and we are looking for solutions to a massive housing crisis. We have 17 and a half thousand people, who are living in emergency accommodation. 5,600 of those are children whose lives are completely and utterly on hold. And, I raised 3 children myself, and I tell you, it's hard enough, with plenty of money and a good house. But I don't know what it's like if you're moving from 1 form of emergency accommodation to another. And your ideas about existing buildings makes total sense because we have a massive amount of them empty in Ireland. And I would say in fairness to our government, they have, actually put in place schemes, maybe a little complicated at times, but they are moving well in that area of modular homes, recycling materials, all excellent. But while I am horrified at the housing crisis, I am also very worried about what deregulation might mean, and I want to see houses built and built well as quickly as possible. But my worry is that when our biggest boom in housing came in Ireland was during 2000 to 2008, when we had massive deregulation, you could say, there you go. Deregulation is great. But with that deregulation and in the meantime, a lack of market surveillance, massive lack of market surveillance, we now have a big problem and there are infringement proceedings against Ireland in relation to deleterious materials, concrete materials in people's houses. And what I want to know is, is there not do you not think there is a danger? And while we need I'll say it again. We need to build houses. Is there not a danger that with deregulation, while you might build them today, they may fall down not tomorrow, but 10 or 15 years time because we are facing 20,000 houses in a small country, like, with 5 and a half million people living in the southern part of the island. And we're looking at 20,000 houses. We're looking at billions in costs. We're looking at people and I have to say it, the reality is people suicidal. Some people dead because they can't deal with distress on this, and their house is falling down around their ears. This is what they're building their houses with and it's crumbling. So I'll say it again. I want the houses built, but I'd like to see them built well. So and this is a question to the commission as well. With due, with, deregulation and with simplification, what are we going to do to make sure that that doesn't lead to the current situation that we have in Ireland? Because that's where we are at the moment. And I want to thank the European Commission for continuing to have an infringement proceedings against Ireland. Mightn't be popular, but I tell you it's the right thing to do.”
  EU housing policy
• “Thank you very much. Thanks, Commissioner. Good to talk to you again. I actually think that the current structure of cap could actually be quite good. And I think many of the people who complain about it have never read it and are just being populist. If they did actually read it and look at it, they could see that if it was applied correctly, it could actually be very good. Inspire voted for it in the first place. When it comes to fairness, the current cap structure allows for more fairness. We have a minimum convergence rate or a maximum convergence rate of 85%. Ireland never went any further than that. What I would suggest next time around is to put it at 100% when it comes to smaller farms. In the current cap structure, we have Chris. A minimum of 10% it has to go to smaller farms. Very few countries went higher than the 10% I would suggest in the new cap that we actually put it higher than that. And countries and regions that have gone as high as 22% have actually seen good results when it comes to the environment eco schemes. The minimum you can do is 25%. Countries can go further if they wish. And I have seen countries with the Green Party in coalition that have not gone further. They should have and they could have. But ultimately this is about funding. We are at only 40% of the funding that we were at in 1991, in Ireland. We need to increase that. You talk about strategic strategic autonomy. European countries are talking about spending 5% of GDP on weapons. We are not even willing to spend 0.5% of GDP on our food. We need to spend it on food before we spend it on weapons. That's our.”
  Agricultural funding
• “Okay. Fair enough. Interesting. Interesting system. There's obviously not not many people around. Um, in relation to the pillar one payments, it's back in relation to your initial point outside carbon farming. It's back again to the finances. I mean, how can how can you get farmers to get involved in a system where they can't trust whether if the money is going to be there in five years time? Because if you put in place a temporary system like this conditionality, let's say, for example, in Ireland we are looking at, well, this is the reality now, 650,000 hectares, subject to gayak to conditionality and the idea that you would bring in some sort of a fund for 5 or 6 years for a transition and then get rid of it, but you'd still have to farm in a particular way. That and it was said yesterday by the Commission when they were talking about simplification, how we will reward people for potential reduction in production, then this is something that's permanent. So for me, the idea that you just have some sort of a transition fund, it's not going to work and you're not going to get farmers to buy into it, into it. Because if you do put money on the table for farmers to do environmental work, and the money is significant and it pays their children's college fees and it pays the diesel in their car to get them to and from school, and it pays for all of their bills, then farmers will do it. And they did it in the past. They did it when they were designated under Natura 2000. They were given €242 per hectare. That's the equivalent of over €500 per hectare now. And not only did, not only were people willing to do it, people were actually annoyed that they weren't put in the designated area because they saw potential for money out of it. So the permanence for me is the importance here.”
  Direct payments to farmers (pillar 1)
• “I would I understand that you've said you'd rather go with option four for me, option two would be a better option, and it's because it's within cap. And for me, the permanence of cap is really, really important. If we want to bring farmers along with us and get them to trust us rather than schemes, potentially through private means, that will come and go, but you'll still be left with the conditionality on your land and the work to do, and then there'll be no money. So for me, option two is definitely the best option. But whatever option you go for, you need money. And at the moment, the average payment, even if you put every last bit of the average payment you can give to a farmer to carbon farming, you be giving them €8,000 a year. You wouldn't be here for that money if we kept pace with 1991, it would be €25,000 a year. So the issue is money. You can talk about it any way you want, but if there's no money, farmers won't do it.”
  Direct payments to farmers (pillar 1)
• “Like that would kind of be important. And when it comes to accountability and it comes to how this money is spent, I mean, the European Court of Auditors couldn't be any more damning. And while everyone on this committee is very supportive of giving money to agriculture, the whole Parliament isn't. And one of the things that the Parliament puts a dependence on is that there's accountability. And if there's no accountability, it makes an argument to take even more money away from agriculture. And finally, in relation to the structure. We're now talking about potentially bringing a whole load of articles back into the Agriculture Committee to decide on, because they were taken out of it. Can the Commission please explain to us what the logic was of taking away deciding types of intervention, specific requirements for Cap intervention, intervention, crisis payments for farmers crops, specific payments for cotton? I could go on. Was there a logic in taking it out of our competence and putting it into the competence of other people? What was the logic? Because I can presume there must have been some logic. It doesn't sound very logical. We're paying each be logical. Can you explain what the logic was? Because for me, I just cannot understand it.”
  Agricultural funding
• “Take it out of that NRP fund and put it directly into the agriculture fund, because then we won't have any worries about whether a country will use it for agriculture. Enough. It's very, very simple. And while I'd also agree maybe farmers won't be bothered about the architecture, I think it is actually important which committee and which people decide on this architecture, because there are key definitions in article three and four of the NRP, which need to be decided by this committee and exclusively decided. And there are ten articles as well in paragraph uh, five. Uh, well, that I would say need to be moved. And for me that's important because we need at the end of the day, if this goes wrong, they won't be looking at any other committee than us. When the streets are on fire out there, they'll be looking at the agri committee. So we're going to get the blame if it goes wrong. I think we should at least get a chance to get it right in the first place. Um, I, uh, this is really, really important, really, really important. And I'll say it again. It's not that hard to be here. There'll be a lot of people complaining about how this was put together at the end of this process yet again. Where the hell are you today?”
  Agricultural funding
• “Uh, thank you very much. Um, and an important topic. And when you think of my country, Ireland. You would think to yourself, well, you're not going to have too many forest fires. The image of it is that it never stops raining. But weather patterns have changed and climate is changing, and we now see situations whereby we can go weeks and weeks without rain. And then in two days, we can get as much rain as we used to get in a number of weeks. So as a result of that, and as a result of a variety of different measures, for the first time in my life, I've seen this year a situation where my neighbours, my secretary's house was under threat from fire. Um, about 30 houses in the area, and we had aerial images of something that looked like hell. Uh, and, uh, it, uh, it woke people up, uh, to the fact that, uh, this can happen in a country like Ireland, uh, where we have a temperate climate and it's something we didn't experience much of. And guess what? It's going to happen more often. Uh, unless you don't believe in science, there's a few people here who don't. But whether you believe it or not, it's a bit like whether you believe in gravity or not.”
  Management of EU forests
• “And I don't think people are on wages like we're on. Should be asking any other question, because we know we do this job for a variety of reasons. But this money wouldn't be here if you weren't paid what you're paid. So we should majorly take that into account. And I would hope, and there is good work being done, and not to be too despondent on it when it comes to getting a fair price, whether that be with what MEP Bonacini is working on on UTP or whether it's, uh, the very good job, I have to say that Selena is doing and defending the Parliament position when it comes to the CMO file and UTP. So there is hope there. But finally, we not only need to get a good price for our product, for these, for these farmers, we also need money for nature restoration, nature protection. And that means more money from Cap, because there needs to be public money into this, because it's not like any other business. There are more things that people have to deal with in this business than being a hairdresser, etc. and that means we need extra finance on top of what you get at the market gate. So for me, all those things are important, but I welcome there's a strategy at least.”
  Direct payments to farmers (pillar 1)
• “Thank you very much. A very important thing to do. And without soil, we won't have food. And without food, we won't have life. So it's fairly obvious we've got to protect them. I think what we're trying to do here makes a lot of sense, but it is only going to measure the health of our soils. It isn't necessarily going to improve the health of our soils and to improve the health of our soils. Various different directives regulations were mentioned, nature restoration and water framework. Lots of other things were mentioned. But ultimately to do a lot of this stuff, we need to incentivize farmers to do a lot of this work and to incentivize them. Well, Surprise, surprise. We need money and we now have less money than ever. I would have been in favor of the nature restoration law, but what I wouldn't have been in favor of is there was no actual real budget put in place. And if you do that, all you do is turn people against doing what needs to be done if you don't provide funding. And at a time when there is less money available for farming, less money available for everything other than buying tanks and guns to basically kill people, and you'd have to question how serious we are about soil. One area that I haven't heard mentioned yet is the whole idea of agroforestry and the benefits of that. But yet again, you need money to incentivize people to do this. And we have never made less money available. So if you have a shopping list and we do have a shopping list and they are essential goods that we're looking to buy, unfortunately we're going to the shop with no money. At the moment we're a bit like a child at Christmas with a big long list. But I have news for you. Santa Claus isn't going to pay for this. We've got to pay for it. It's really important to do. I agree with the idea of it. I'd actually be worried what results we're going to find, though, because we're not investing enough in this area.”
  Soil protection policy
• “(15:09:45 – 15:12:13): Thanks very much for, what is a very helpful study. It informs us, how to put together better policy. I don't know. Do you have the phrase around here of no 1 shouted stop? And, often, politicians are criticized for not shouting stop. I'm hearing everyone shout stop at the moment, but I'm not seeing it stopping. So, hopefully hopefully, we will see some improvements after we work on it. So, your study concludes that there's no provision for funding for data collection and control. So what would your suggestion be to tackle this? That and I'm I'm not clear. Are you calling for the reintroducing of a ring fenced budget as was the case with MFAP? And, from the point of view of being confident of getting extra resources on top of the 2,000,000,000, I'm also a member of AGRI, and I've been I I was told by the commission, don't worry. You'll be able to fight for other resources. But the reality is if everyone fights for more resources, then someone is going to lose out. And you'd have to ask, all I know is for my country, politicians ain't quite so interested in fisheries. That's why you never see money from Ireland here. You'll see plenty of them at the agri committee. And the worry with, fishers in Ireland is that the results of this level of political interest in agri over fisheries will mean that there's only gonna be 1 loser here. And by the way, I think there needs to be more money for all. At a time when we're talking about strategic autonomy, I think surely food in our bellies is the most strategic autonomous thing that you can do. And, the reality is that, if we if we don't think like that, we're gonna be in trouble. I'd also like to ask, what are your recommendations for conservation and restoration of marine resources? How can we make sure that this is a key objective as it was with, MFAP? And it I'd be interested to hear what the commission have to say and to reply in reply to your study and from other questions that were asked because, there's a lot of questions being to be answered just from the presentation alone. Thanks very much. Thank you. Mister Drese? Thank you, chair. I will speak German. So”
  Funding for fisheries and aquaculture
• “Thank you very much. In order to get out of a place where you don't want to be, you've got to work out how you've got there in the first place. And there's one word will explain exactly why we are here today. And that is Trump, Donald Trump. If Donald Trump wasn't trying to cover up for the fact that he is a paedophile, we wouldn't be dealing with this, because this man will do absolutely anything to take attention away from the sort of monster that he is. And unfortunately, we are now paying the price. So the number one thing we could do here today is to appeal to American politicians to impeach, impeach, impeach. He is the person who has brought us here immediately. What can we do? Because this problem needs to be dealt with immediately. We need to look at rules around minimum VAT rates on fuels. We also need to look at, as a previous speaker mentioned, the nitrates directive. If there is an issue with spreading spreading natural fertilizer, which we're going to potentially have to depend upon, we need to do something about that. We also need to look more long term.”
  EU-US relations
• “(16:23:57 – 16:25:24): Thanks, for your report. If as other pity, there aren't more up to date figures as other people have said. It's interesting to see that the report indicates that there has been strong support for data collection and control operations in initial operations under MFF. Yet we've just heard from the policy department that there will be no ring fence funding for such data collection and control under the new MFF. So how do you propose to ensure that member states allocate sufficient non ring fence funding to ensure such data collection and control operations are continued, which the policy department report estimated at 1,900,000,000? And also, according to NGO reports, only 20% of the funds in the EMFF supported small scale fisheries. And I I think you said they've done quite well. 70% of fishers getting 20%. I don't know. I don't see how that's doing well. That's doing not well, I would say. So do you know is if a similar figure applies for small scale fisheries support under MFAP? And if so, how can we improve this situation, ensure that small scale fisheries become a priority for member states? Because everyone in here seems to support small scale fishers. I go home. All the politicians more support small scale fishers. Doesn't seem to matter very much, though, that all of us support them, but they always end up getting the dirty end of the stick.”
  Funding for fisheries and aquaculture
• “Thank you very much. And in a world where you'd nearly be afraid to open a newspaper or read a story, it's great to get some good news. So well done on that. And I can't help but think it is in some way to do with the opinion polls in the UK. I think democracy is a good way of waking people up at times, and I think that's what's actually happened here. I'd welcome the moves on the movement for young people. And while the 12 year provisional agreement on Fisheries provides certainty. All right. Um, the question is, do we want the type of certainty that we have at the moment? And what was a particularly bad deal for Irish fishers? Uh, it's a similar question to what MEP Cowan has asked. How will the review fit into this whole 12 year process. And with regard to, um, I have a particular question. How will we ensure that imports into the EU from third countries do meet EU standards are not placed on the EU market, in particular in relation to the EU, US deal or the UK US deal?”
  Import of agri-food products in the EU
• “So if they're in favour of it and we need money off the corporate world, well then let's tax their profits and take money from that area, because we now have less money in cap in real terms. Since 1991, we have 71% less money in Ireland come the start of the next cap. So it's not a luxury. We're having a crisis. It doesn't look like this is a very, very good way to get the money. So I think what we should actually be doing is not going for such a convoluted system. At a time when we're talking about simplification, we need to go for a simpler system, a more honest system, get it from public money, from taxation, and from a farmer perspective, double or triple the cap budget and put a massive amount of money into nature restoration because it's been proven that farmers will do it when they're funded. But if they're not funded, they won't do it. I actually I don't agree with this. I think this is a con job. I'll say it again. If the corporate world is going to fund it, we should make them fund it. We should tax them and we should fund the future of our planet.”
  Agricultural funding
• “Yeah, fine. We accept people who are autistic. But my life experience doesn't show me that people are very good at talking. I don't find they're very good at following through, and issues that may affect people would work. Who are autistic are things like time blindness. I use that as my excuse for not stopping talking in time. Issues like having eating disorders, which I have as a result of being autistic, and what impact that has on you in trying to take part in a job and a job environment, but we have. I visited farms that are involved in social farming in Ireland. I'd like to see an awful lot more of it go on. And just to take up what MEP Cowan said, it's going to kind of be hard, hard to do that if we're going operating on less money because there's going to be lots of polls from different directions looking for money, and if we are 22% less, this makes it even more challenging. But I'll finish by saying we should talk about the opportunities and not the responsibilities, and not talk about it from the point of view of this might make things difficult. You used to say the same thing about women. Ridiculous in all as it sounds now, and we've worked it out. It was all a positive thing. And the more we all have an equal say, the better. Not a challenge. It's not a responsibility. It's an opportunity.”
  EU policy on disability inclusion & accessibility
• “And I'd just be worried that the performance, it will be just judged on what initially it did for farmers and did it help them. It actually helps far more than that and helps the whole of a whole of society. And actually, from a cultural point of view, in many areas of my country, the Irish language is supported, um, in a way, by the fact that this funding is coming in. So will that performance be taken into account? Because when it comes to performance in that area, I have to say its performance has been phenomenal. It has been essential, and it's why it's sad to see it being cut. It's sad to see the amount of money available being cut already. Performance is measured by the European Court of Auditors and we have special reports done. And there is often complaints in this committee. Well why are they measuring performance when it comes to the environment etc.. But I'm just wondering how does this a new look at it, how does that impact the work that they do? And um, look, I'll repeat what some of the others have said. Simplification has been promised before and we haven't had it. But we'll wait and see. We'll wait and see.”
  Agricultural funding
• “Unlike a lot of MEPs, as you can see, and unless you put funding into this area, it's not everything, but you're not going to get buy in because people won't be able to do it, because they won't be able to do exactly what's required to improve the situation. And an example would be, I'm looking like since the debate on the NRL, is there any more news in Ireland on where the funding is going to come from? And if you Google it and you look it up, it's the same story that was there originally. 3.15 billion. Climate and Nature Fund, which has been totally debunked as a lie. It's good money. All right. It will go towards infrastructure. But there's going to be nothing there really for individual projects, for farmers. So for me, how do we do this without funding? And I'll finish by saying then we get this shotgun to the head, basically with the cut in funding to agriculture. Down by 22%, down by 70% since 1991. We can't come in here and say farmers should do X, Y, and Z if we haven't done our ABCs on what it will cost and actually providing funding for it. Funnily enough, we have money for weapons, though I don't.”
  Agricultural funding
• “A rash is a shadow under the file. Next. And thanks you very much to the European Court of Auditors. And, uh, it's, uh. All I can say is, without the European Court of Auditors, an awful lot of this information wouldn't get out there. As the last speaker said, this confirms an awful lot of what people were saying. And people were thinking, um, is, uh, when you see a report like this and you hear the amount of negatives that the Court of Auditors come out with. And I've said it before, and I'll say it again, they don't have a political axe to grind. Not unless there's something we don't know about. And they definitely don't. And they're basing it on the facts. And their facts are that, uh, well, I think the biggest thing that stands out is lessons learned from the RFF not addressed. And we're talking about lessons learned from a fund that was 730 billion. I've spoken to people in the court of auditors about it. I've spoken to a lot of people about this. And as far as they're concerned, we are heading down the same road again, uh, with no real accountability for, um, people's money. Uh, it will add to skepticism within the European Union. And without doubt, I think we will achieve simplification with this. But simplification at what cost? And we've often joked in my office that the ideal simplification seems to be, give me the money and go away and don't ask any questions.”
  Accounting and auditing of EU budget
• “Thank you very much. I often hear people come in here and say, this is an important subject, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. And for me, it's very, very important subject. I was diagnosed as autistic about 15 months ago. I have three autistic children, two of them with ADHD, and it's something obviously, inevitably, I've spent an awful lot of time thinking about. But when people say they care about people with disabilities, I believe them more if they turned up here. And if some people from the main groups took this more seriously, then I don't think we'd have to fight because the money would be here. I've also heard the use of and I think language is very, very important. I've also heard the use of the phrase extra responsibilities might require us needing extra funding. I do not like that language. I think we should look at extra opportunities out of making sure that everyone can participate in society. And while autistic people may have certain limitations in certain areas, they also have talents in other areas that are of a massive benefit. It's just a question of trying to facilitate people so they can actually give you all their skills, and you can actually use all their skills. And I want to say it's very refreshing to hear the speaker talk up there and show how clearly you understand the subject of autism. When you talk about late diagnosis and the impact that that has on people. And I think it's very, very important to talk about that. I think it's very, very important to talk about acceptance as well, because everyone seems to think, yeah, okay.”
  EU policy on disability inclusion & accessibility
• “And we're slowly but surely heading there. And that simplification isn't going to deliver on a common cause, which is this, which is what we're meant to do. It's called the European Union for a reason, not to create a situation where we all run in different directions, and no one knows where the money is spent, and there's no credibility for how the money is spent. And for me, that's really, really worried, like to hear things like no provision for the collection of information, no impact indicators defined, and then this overstatement of what it's going to do for the environment. We had something similar with areas of natural constraint in the Cap regulation the last time, claiming more of it was for the environment than actually was, because it actually, strictly speaking, wasn't for the environment. But there's one thing for sure we won't solve our problems by lying to ourselves. We won't solve our problems by closing our eyes. And that's what, um. Well, look, you can say people are being political saying this. It's in black and white. It's there in what the European Court of Auditors have said. I hope we can improve it. That's our role.”
  Accounting and auditing of EU budget
• “Uh, thank you very much. And, uh, well done to, uh, Bert and the draft that you've done. Uh, in my experience with you, you always have a nose for, uh, spotting where potentially we're going to be short changed, whether that was yesterday at the committee on the MFF and them taking us down from 6 billion down to two, or whether it be the cap budget. Um, I'm glad to see that it's been noticed here that, um, as a percentage of overall horizon, funds were actually down quite a lot. And it should be, uh, what you call it. If it was at 18%, then we would end up getting about 12 billion more. So I think it's good to note that, um, I think it's worrying, uh, as it is in many areas where, um, creating symbiotic relationships and getting better value for money seems to be a roundabout way of hiding the fact that you're taking money away from agriculture. I think that would be a worry about the fact that it isn't actually stand alone in this agriculture, the word integration is used, but as long as it isn't used to actually hide money and I think we should obviously always innovate, we should always try and improve and always try and make things better and make ourselves more competitive. And so we can produce more. But we want to look at. The more we produce as farmers, the less price we seem to get, and the more production and the better that we seem to get at production. I don't see it coming back to the farmers, so I'd be more in a hurry to get a better price for a farmer than to make them more innovative, because making them more innovative hasn't made them richer. Not in my experience.”
  Agricultural funding
• “Thank you very much. As you've said, unfortunately, Emma cannot be here today. She sends her apologies and would like to thank the shadow rapporteurs and members for their participation in the exchange. She'd also like to extend her thanks to the administrators of the committee for their work under tight deadlines, as well as the representatives of the European Commission for being here today to explain their work in more detail, the rapporteur would like to recall that the Treaty on Biodiversity beyond National Jurisdiction, is a landmark agreement for the protection of the high seas. The high seas are home to unique species of vulnerable ecosystems. They are also important areas for commercial activities such as fishing, shipping and other activities. High seas ecosystems are Unfortunately under significant pressure such as pollution, overfishing and the effects of climate change. The most recent and growing threat, both for marine ecosystems and fisheries activities in the high seas, is the potential development of deep sea mining activities. The Bbnj agreement is the result of decades of discussion and constitutes a huge achievement in the field of ocean diplomacy. It closes the longstanding governance gaps in conserving and managing marine life in the high seas. We now have an international legal instrument that covers all areas beyond national jurisdiction. The rapporteur therefore welcomes the EU's renewed commitment under the Ocean Pact to ensure its swift ratification, transposition and implementation.”
  Nature protection and restoration in the EU
• “And a bit like a heroin addict that's addicted to heroin. They need it today. But you should aim for a future where you won't be dependent on something that isn't sustainable and Ultimately destroy you. We need it because you made us dependent on it. We need to find a path out of that. Otherwise, we are dependent on forces outside our control. People like Vladimir Putin and now your party are making us dependent on a man who holds a chainsaw as part of his political movement when it comes to supplying beef in Europe. So I won't take any lectures from you.”
  Trade relations with Mercosur
• “Um, first of all, thanks for your 11 years, uh, coming here in your 11 years of work and service, it's appreciated. Um, in the context of Mercosur, um, Efsa's role involves ensuring that imported food products meet the same high safety standards as those produced within the EU, even if they're not subject to the same regulations in their country of origin. You've explained here today how you could do with more resources, and that's to do what you're already doing. And with the, well, the imminent signing of this Mercosur agreement, it's going to create an awful lot more work for you. And will you be able to do it? Will you be able to keep up with the work that's required, given that as things stand, you don't have enough resources to do what you're currently doing just in relation to the detail of the work you do. What level of independent studies and trials do you do on new pesticides but on the market? And do you have the expertise and the necessary funds to carry out this independent testing? And if you don't, what sort of money do you need? Because when we're making decisions here, we've got to know how much it's going to cost every day at this committee meeting on each topic. Everyone demands more money. And then they leave the committee and they go back to their parties and their governments, and they commit to giving no more money. So really, it's a bit like a Santa Claus situation here. Everyone wants everything, but no one's prepared for the reality about Santa Claus. So I'm just wondering, how much money will you need to do this, right? Because if we don't know how much money you need, we can't fight for it. How much do we need?”
  Trade relations with Mercosur
• “Thank you very much. This is a very, very important topic. And without antimicrobials we would we'd have major problems. And without antimicrobials functioning properly, we would be in serious trouble. And that's why we've got to be very careful with their use. We've got to use them in a cautionary way. We certainly shouldn't be using them to offset low animal welfare standards. And for me, I think it's very important that we have a logical system and the idea of having just a 50% cut, regardless of where each individual country is starting from is okay. It might make political logic, but it isn't very logical in a lot of other senses. And it's important. The more data and the more information we have on this, the better and the more responsible we can be in dealing with it. But there was a phrase coined during the debate in Ireland on whether we should have smoking in workplaces and smoking in pubs in particular, and some lobbyists suggested we should have smoking and non-smoking sections. And the phrase that was coined was it was like suggesting we have pissing and pissing sections in swimming pools. And that's kind of what we're doing here in the EU. We're putting together all of this careful legislation monitoring antimicrobial use. And then at the same time, we're going to sign up to Mercosur. The pissing section of the swimming pool will we cannot monitor what's going into our food. But here at home, we're going to have perfectly clean water. Unfortunately, the piss doesn't stay in the one section of the pool.”
  Trade relations with Mercosur
• “Um, if MEPs in the European Parliament are daft enough to support the Mercosur agreement, um, never will it be more important to have a promotional budget. Because one of the reasons we're told it'll be okay to go ahead with Mercosur is because you won't have any worries about quality. If we don't have any worries about quality, what reason other than patriotism, would a customer buy Irish or Italian beef above Mercosur beef? Because we're being told there's nothing to worry about. They're all the same. And I'm just wondering what role would the promotional budget play there? How would it tell people in my community the benefit to the local community of buying beef from Roscommon in Ireland, as opposed to buying it thousands of kilometres away? Will the promotional budget be used to explain to people that every time someone spends money in Castle Rematch that ends up in the hairdressers to mechanics, it ends up in the schools, it ends up paying teachers. Will the promotional budget be used for that? Because we are. And no one has contradicted me yet. Looking at a situation. If MEPs are crazy enough to sign up to Mercosur, whereby 8% of high value cuts of beef coming into Europe will be coming from Mercosur, how will we use this budget to deal with this crazy situation? If you're all mad enough to sign up to it.”
  Trade relations with Mercosur
• “Thank you very much. And congratulations to everyone who's put in the work on this. I think it's an opportune time to be talking about how we make the livestock sector more sustainable. And normally when we come here, we're talking about what we can get the European Union to do to help us. And in this case, I would say, what can we do to stop the European Union doing that is actually damaging the livestock livestock sector, whether that be Mercosur and the underplaying of the the amount or the percentage of high cut beef that will be coming into the European Union. We're told 1.5%. But you actually drill down into it. It's going to be closer to 5%. So what can the European Union do to make the livestock sector more sustainable? Stop doing that maybe. And we talk about ensure food security. I come from a country, Ireland, and you'd imagine we produce a lot of food. We produce a lot of beef. All right. We produce a lot of milk powder, but Ireland is a net importer of calories. Ireland is a net importer of protein. So I think maybe we want to think again about what we call a sustainable. And not only that, we also had a policy from the European Union through the Beam scheme, whereby farmers in my area were incentivised to move out of suckler farming, the most sustainable, the most animal welfare form of beef farming. And they were given two options production, reduction or promotion. The promotion option was never given to farmers and never mentioned to them at the Department of Agriculture, and they were encouraged to reduce in order to facilitate the growth of dairy beef, the least sustainable sector of beef in our country and from a quality point of view, not what the customer wants. 20 billion from Europe to make our decent beef sector less sustainable. So what can we do here? Stop damaging it in the first place.”
  Trade relations with Mercosur
• “Let me first say we're in here an awful long time. Every time we come every month. And, Tony, give us a minute and a half to talk about stuff like this is really undemocratic. And I stick to what I thought originally. I've read through every last article of these regulations, and when I ran for election, I ran for election on the basis that I would represent the agricultural community. And as a member of the agricultural committee, I would have some control over their destiny. The new proposals that you put out are Ursula von der Leyen put out. I don't believe you put them out. Basically, take away the core decisions for us. Article four of the current Cap Strategic Plan regulation allows us, allowed us to define what is a farmer, young farmer, agricultural activity, etc. in the new proposals that will be handed over to a variety of other committees and other people to decide. How is that what the farmers who protested in the last few years? How is that what they wanted? It isn't what they wanted. Also, can you tell me why was Chris removed out of this, the redistribution mechanism that actually worked? You talk about funding. Well, look, I don't know. Do you have the phrase about how it's raining? But in fact, the liquid isn't like water. It's green liquid down on top of your head. Well, that's what's been done to us here. I've looked at Ireland's next envelope of what we'll get it will be 1.165 billion in comparison to what we got in 1991. It is a 70% reduction in funding at the beginning of this cap. And by the end of the cap, 75% reduction at the end of this. If we agree to this, we'll be left with nothing to fight over. The frog has been slowly boiled, and you're about to kill it.”
  Agricultural funding
• “Maybe not the farmers that are popular with my government, but the farmers that are always trodden on. The farmers that always get walked on in the first iteration of the plan. And that's why it's important to retain a review for farmers. Gaec two is mentioned and for me, in spite of voted against nature restoration law, because I believe in a just transition, you should pay people to do work. And you mentioned the idea of it should be made simpler in Giac two. If you paid people there is no money, there should be money, but there is no money. And to make it worse. And remember, Commission and I backed you, and I've stood by you and many times. And I've come in here and defended you. But you're coming in here talking about simplification, and you've just signed off on a package from Ireland on Giac two that includes over 100,000 hectares of mineral soils using old maps that don't even work. And you come in here and you talk to us about simplification. Farmers aren't simple. They need certainty, they need funding, and they need money to do this stuff. That's the answer. Because if we don't do that, we'll be back again here in a few years time, continuing our rolling cap strategic plan. That isn't a plan at all. A plan doesn't change every bloody day.”
  Agricultural funding
• “Commissioner McGrath, welcome to our committee. Commissioner in Ursula von der Leyen's letter to you last year, she highlighted that and I quote, you should make full use of all instruments for implementation and enforcement, including infringement proceedings. Do you believe you have successfully met those expectations? You spoke here today about enforcement and about us being the world leaders. Last summer, I welcome the news that the commission had issued infringement proceedings against Ireland, specifically in relation to a breach of the Construction Products Regulation due to the lack of market surveillance. But we've heard nothing since. Constituency constituents regularly inquire about progress, expressing their hope that this situation cannot and will not be repeated. I think we talk a lot in this Parliament about these theoretical situations, but the consequences of this failure are not abstract legal points. They are the lived realities of thousands of people in Ireland whose homes have been severely damaged by defective construction products. These are individuals and families who invested their life savings in what should have been their sanctuary, only to find themselves living in structurally unsound and dangerous properties. They face immense financial burdens, emotional issues, and a profound sense of injustice. I know one constituent who is going to lose It was €150,000. Because of this, the Commission's letter of formal notice to Ireland last summer was a necessary recognition of this unacceptable situation. However, the lack of visible progress is disappointing. Where are the consequences for those who failed those homeowners whose lives have been upended by these failures? Where is the assurance that such negligence will never happen again? Do we know anything more from Ireland? Is there a timeline? We are apparently the guardians of consumer rights within the European Union. We cannot allow this situation to continue. I urge you, Commissioner, to give an update on the infringement proceedings as soon as you can to ensure that Ireland rectifies the market surveillance practices urgently, and to actively engage in finding solutions for the consumers who have already suffered irreparable harm. We need transparency on the measures being taken to support these victims and to hold those responsible accountable. Do you have anything to say?”
  EU Supervision of the Rule of Law
• “A lot of them come in here to this committee, and they complained and they said, for example, in Ireland, oh, this is complicated and that is complicated. And then you go and meet the commission. You discover actually in Ireland, we gold plated it, we platinum plated it. We look for new metals that didn't even exist to plate the regulations, and then complained that Europe did it to us. And we have politicians in Ireland running off with that ball saying, oh, Europe made us do it. Well, they're not here today. They don't explain to people that actually it could have, under the current architecture, been done right. And they just look for change to get votes. They don't give a damn about the consequences. So as a result of it, here we are looking at how well the new delivery model is working. And at the same time, we're currently working on changing it again. For me, the best way to keep life simple is to keep it constant and not to just change. Just because someone shouts the loudest and you're afraid to explain to them that actually calm down. This could actually be all right if it's done this way, but you can't get votes that way. That's what it seems.”
  Jurisdiction conflicts between EU and national courts
• “They will disappear. Then we'll have another crisis. Then we won't have the knowledge to bring them back. Then we won't have the ability to bring them back, and then we will be short of food. And we've got to learn from this. We've got to learn that. We've got to create sustainable food systems which are not dependent on outside inputs. And yes, we can do all this agriculturally, but we want to remember that if the European Union had not been supplying weapons to a genocidal regime in Israel with a war criminal as their leader. We would not be where we are now, and what we need to do is send out a message that if you're going to destroy our economy, we're going to fight you back. And what we want to do is stop trading with Israel because we would not be in this position. Whatever about learning for the future, we wouldn't have this short term problem that's going to turn into a fiasco if we didn't keep selling guns, bombs and weapons to people who have proven you shouldn't even give them a stick, let alone a gun.”
  Relations with Israel - Palestine
• “To be two people at once here. But I just want to comment on the rapporteurs work, and I want to say I fully agree with this. I think the rapporteur has proposed new recital, and amendment three is particularly important in relation to increasing coherence between Rfmos and the Bbnj network. The reason I want to highlight this amendment is because there was an interesting academic paper published over the summer on this agreement. It looked at how the agreement faces an ongoing challenge where commercially valuable marine resources, such as fisheries and marine resources are managed separately from broader marine biodiversity concerns in the high seas, and the tension partly arises from whether fish should be treated as part of marine biodiversity or as a resource already managed separately under existing regimes in practice. And the authors of the papers concluded that without a broad consensus among Rfmo members, adopting bbnj related conservation tools may be limited in practice, which obviously we don't want, resulting in only partial or symbolic implementation. And I think this conclusion highlights the relevance and the importance of the rapporteur's amendment and I, and which calls for a coordinated approach to ensure coherence with bodies such as the Rfmos. And just in relation to comments made by members on MEP for us report. Um, I will pass the questions and the comments on her and in particular, and many members have said it taking into account socio economic concerns, because to me it's a kind of a repeated thing we need to do this, but if you don't take into account socio economic concerns, no matter how concerned you are, if you don't have a cent in your pocket, you can't really act. So I would have to agree with people who said that and I definitely back that. Thank you.”
  Nature protection and restoration in the EU
• “Thank you very much and thanks for your interest in presentation. And I think most of the other speakers have said it, 3% of young farmers are women, and that isn't because a very, very small fraction of women want to become young farmers versus the amount of young men who want to become farmers. It's because obviously it isn't a very attractive prospect for a variety of reasons. There are common reasons why it wouldn't be attractive to many young people, but there's obviously extra reasons why it wouldn't be attractive to women. And this is a tragedy from a variety of reasons, from an equality point of view, for someone who has three daughters and someone who's a white man, I realise since I've had three daughters, the ultimate crazy privileges that I have, and I look at the lack of equality that they have and it comes across in every aspect of society, but it's even worse in farming, and we've got to change that, and we've got to change it in a in a big way because we're losing out on massive talent, we're losing out on ideas, we're losing out on innovation, and we're losing out on making a better world as a result of it. And I suppose there are obvious things that make it more difficult in rural areas access to health services, abortion services are a lot more challenging and completely restricted in some areas. Access to childcare. It was mentioned there that women take over the farm, but they end up with all of the other previous jobs that they had beforehand.”
  Gender roles, equality and inclusion
• “Yeah. Um, we we want to make a political choice. We're either in favor of globalization or we're not. And we're in favor of globalization. Well, there's plenty of money, and then we're not in favor of globalization when it goes against us. And, uh, in an Irish context, like we're talking about a massive market here, we're talking about €100 million. Um, it's great money for our economy, but you'd have to look at the long term sustainability of depending on something like this, because we are just wide open to threats and we don't seem to be able to do anything about it. But I think we also need to look at what's seen as what's important by the people who run the European Union, which is more important, the German car industry or the Irish pork industry, which is more important? Um, um, basically helping the European or German car industry in Mercosur or is it suckler farmers in Roscommon, which is more important? And it seems that, uh, parts for machines ultimately win out here. And someone said to me there recently that I have to say, I think the new EU commissioner, as he was at the time for agriculture, has to be the best agriculture commissioner for the European car industry there ever has been, but not certainly not the best when it comes to agriculture.”
  Trade relations with Mercosur
• “(10:26:45 – 10:27:47): Yeah. Would primarily undermine young farmers and accelerate the concentration of farms. Generation renewal cannot succeed without ensuring decent living standards and incomes as well as effective access to public services in rural areas. It also requires addressing the social and health challenges facing the sector, which is characterized by high levels of job insecurity, stress, and isolation. Finally, this renewal must not serve as a pretext for continuing a model that exacerbates economic pressure and land speculation. On the contrary, it must be accompanied by a transformation of the agricultural model making it fairer and more sustainable. That is why I he will advocate in particular for a greater proportion of the cap budget to be earmarked for young farmers, increased transparency regarding land concentration, and clear support for cooperative, collective, and agroecological models. Thank you.”
  Agriculture (green)
• “(09:50:02 – 09:51:32): Thank you very much. Very important file. We're going talking about generation renewal after this, and we won't have any generation renewal unless we guarantee at minimum that, farmers get what it cost them to produce their product, and this regulation is important in doing that. And as 1 of the previous speakers said, the last negotiations on the CMO were very complicated, difficult to get agreement on. And it it it is true to say that it it depends which farmers groups you listen to on contracts, though. Because if you actually listen to them, the dairy groups actually wanted tighter contracts, and I'd like to see that coming through in any reform. In relation to hemp, which no 1 has mentioned, we are talking about a multibillion euro sector. What's proposed in this regulation is very good when it comes to harmonization of THC levels, and more importantly, that's the whole plant would be allowed to be used. We have a situation in Ireland where at €3,000 a kilo, we have companies importing hemp flower. And in Ireland, the same hemp farmers are actually told they have to destroy the same flowers. So I look forward to what's proposed coming through in the regulation to free up the hemp industry because we are looking at exponential growth in the future, and Europe should be there and be able to take advantage of it and Ireland too for that matter. Thank you.”
  EU policy on farmer–buyer relations in the agri-food supply chain
• “Thank you. I think the setting up of the observatory was very, very important. The jury is out on how effective it's it's going to be. But for me, I think it's essential. And a previous speaker said that we don't really need an observatory to see what farmers are going through. I get that point. We know what farmers are going through. All you have to do is, for example, go to our ploughing championship in Ireland. And you can see that everyone involved in farming has money except for farmers, whether that's machinery producers, whether that's people selling feed everyone, bear the farmer. And we need to change a situation where you can have someone at the top of the food chain, people like Larry Goodman, flying around in a private jet, and the people who are doing the real work can't even barely afford to put diesel in their car. But for years, I would imagine you're the same we've had in my office. People come to me claiming that there's a cartel, for example, in the beef industry, and they bring us information. We go to the commission, it goes around in the circle because it's very, very hard to prove it. So hopefully this observatory will be something more concrete than people just coming to you individually and telling you that there's a problem. And it's all very well observing, as Martin Hausling said. But we also need Action. At the end of the day, I understand this is only up and running a short time, but we will need to see results out of it. We will need to see data shared and for me it's a bit like a speedometer on a car. It's all very well knowing what speed you're doing, but if someone is doing 100km above the speed limit, you need someone to come in and police it. And for me, ideally, this new, uh, move on legislation on unfair trading practices will use this data to create a situation where farmers will get a good place in the food chain and will get paid for what they do, like everyone else in this room does. Not too much to ask, I would say.”
  EU policy on farmer–buyer relations in the agri-food supply chain
• “The first thing I'd like to take up is this anxiety that we proceed quickly. Look, we need to get this right. Um, we need to do a good job of it. And to do that, we need as much time as we need. And. Okay, uh, obviously, farmers need certainty, and they want the rules in place in time, but they want the rules put together correctly because we apparently we had to rush simplification. We had to rush the last cap. It all seems to be pushing us along. Well, that's not the way to do business. We need to get this right. And that's really, really important. Now, when I hear incentivize rather than punish, I think that's absolutely wonderful. But I don't know what incentivized you to come here today. I know you love the European Union and all, but I'd say the main thing was you got paid. And no matter how wonderful you think you are, that's the main reason you're here. And we're looking at a 30% cut to the budget in real terms by the time it starts. And that's a problem. And we talk about more income foregone and that requires money. Where does the money come from? If there's a cut. And I hear about this rural target, and I agree with MEP Cowan and other speakers that, you know, where's the guarantee that this money will come back to agriculture and what's the best way to do it? Well, the best way to do it is simple enough.”
  Agricultural funding
• “And so we now have two years of data and two years of experience. And the question is does this cap work? I find it interesting, if not so much strange, that some people in here are disappointed that something they negotiated, worked on, and agreed to might actually be better than they thought. Because I voted for it. I think it could have been applied better. Still, it still think it can be. But I'm just curious why MEPs in here voted for this if they have such a problem with it. And it's good having anecdotal evidence of how people are getting on it. But this is actually the first real study we've had as to how it's working. And before we even published this study, we're talking about changing it all again in the name of simplification, we're going to change all the rules again in order to make it simple. Well, I'd love someone to try and explain that logic to me because it is not logical. And the details of these strategic plans. And one of the positives, I think about national Cab strategic plans, and especially for people who whinge that Europe tells us what to do. You get to decide at home, within the rules that your MEPs agreed on what happens. So that to me is quite a good thing. And there were minimums that countries could do.”
  Agriculture (green)
• “And thanks very much to the Eeas for their opinion and for Joe Healy to come in here and present it. I would agree with an awful lot of what's in the report. An awful lot of the criticisms you make have been made here at the committee. They've been made by the European Court of Auditors. Without doubt. It is disappointing, to say the least. Totally and utterly wrong that the budget in real terms is being cut and in Irish terms, since 1991, we're looking at nearly a 70% cut in the budget. And I would for me, my audience here wouldn't just be farmers, it would be people who have never been involved in farming, who live in rural areas, who basically get this money second hand when the farmers spend it and it goes around in the local economy. So for me, this massive reduction in budget is a massive reduction for all rural areas, whether that be farmers, whether that be mechanics, hairdressers or anyone who lives in rural areas. And I would agree with what you're saying in relation to getting rid of pillar two. And to me, that just doesn't make any sense.”
  Cohesion and rural funding
• “Thank you very much for your presentation, and congratulations on your presentation style. You'd listen to. We're here all day, so it's good that people come in here and make things interesting for us. I think that has to be said. So well done there. And in relation to, uh, efsa's budget and what potentially is coming down the line. Hopefully it isn't. Hopefully we'll reject the Mercosur agreement. This is, you would imagine, going to put pressure on your resources. What extra resources will you be getting if this deal goes through? What role will you play on the ground? Uh, when it comes to making sure that we don't end up getting something in Europe that, well, according to your own words, couldn't be defined as food. And there are obvious concerns among people about the Mercosur agreement and about the ability to keep some of these substances out of what we're eating. And I don't know, you're familiar with in late 2025, the Farmers Journal and the Irish Farmers Association exposed a prescription only antibiotics and growth hormones that were being used illegally in Brazilian cattle production. And we hear other stories. I won't go through them. There are numerous, which would give people a lack of confidence as to what they're eating, and even less confidence with this potential deal going through. So specifically the questions I've asked John Mercosur, can you give me some answers on that? Thank you. Actually, one other thing you mentioned when it comes to simplification, artificial intelligence. And you'll be using that. What what exactly does simplification look like and what else will you be using to make things simpler? Because, well, it seems to be the buzz phrase around here. And at times I'm wondering what's to boast about being simple. Surely it should be sophisticated. We're trying to be not simple because I think we're smarter than that. What do you mean when you say simplification?”
  Trade relations with Mercosur
• “Yeah, I think maybe we should start calling it the UAP, the Uncommon Agricultural Policy, because it's not going to be too common after this. We're looking at a reduction in money while the EU budget has increased. But never mind the less money is going to be linked to inflation. And even if we stayed at the current amount in Ireland, you'd be getting 40% of what you're getting in 1991. It's it's astonishing really. And it's good to see the passion here on this, but I've seen passion here before and I saw it on Mercosur. There wasn't a person in here disagreed with it. And now apparently you're being awkward if you do disagree with it. So I hope you keep your passion on this. And I listened to Herbert Dorfman's speech. Herbert, you voted for this commission on it. And if you're not happy with them, put down a motion of censure to remove them, and I'll support you on the detail. One of the big things that we were meant to do was to help smaller family farms. You got rid of the one instrument that can actually achieve that, Chris. Now the question is, will the aggressive kitty be the equivalent of that? Will it be worth as much? Will it be worth €43 a hectare for the first 30 hectares as it is in Ireland? And if you're on 70,000 currently under your proposals, you lose 10,000. What happens to this 10,000. You were a bit vague as to what happens. You said farmers can be given back the money if member states want to give it to them. What exactly will happen with them? Because at the moment, my member state has no choice but to give €43 extra per hectare to small scale farmers. And the reason why I'm happy they have no choices, because they won't bloody well give it to them unless they have no choice. So how are you going to get money to small farms? And I'll say it again. If you're not happy with the commission, it's the democratic place here. I'll support getting rid of them. Either that or stop complaining about something you supported.”
  Direct payments to farmers (pillar 1)
• “P.s. Talk about the Markers agreement and MPS express concerning the agreement proposed Mercosur Agreement. Don't worry about quality because the quality will be just is good to about contaminant. Don't worry about harmony. Because. We are and that will be the difference and quality. That's what the European Union is not the same time. The European Union is in the theory of money. The world that is the true world food is better than. The same is. The marketer is that it is better than what the mercosur ones. When you can, how can you do you and there is the people that we don't give up with an expert People also massive the coming to up to experience. Wonderful food and now we are the situation. The Commission is to Brazilian beef and this tables, restaurants and the company to you can watch to the importance for the same of what is the main incentive to come here to experience a brilliant food center for people to be Europe, because well, actualei coaliții is good for Mercosur and so what the hell This is the end of all the money and promotion may be consistent. What about the quality of food and. Acțiunile noastre importante. This from Mercosur in the first place to the other country. This is the.”
  Trade relations with Mercosur
• “Yeah. Um, thanks very much. Um, I think actually to take up points, a point that the last speaker was talking about and it's to, you know, the idea that, uh, we do no harm, but to the question that has to be asked is when we're looking at performance and what we take into account and value for money, because it is really, really important that taxpayers get value for money. And it's actually people like me who probably question whether it's good value for money. And I say people like me in that. People who've never lived on a farm live in a town with culturally, even though I come from a very small town, culturally, we'd see ourselves as townies. But, uh, will, you know, we're looking at the performance of how we're spending our money. Will it take into account the massive benefits that my family have got from cap, even though we have never. My family aren't farmers. The benefit that my father got from the money, from putting in fish cupboards, doors and windows for farmers, the benefit that the local hairdressers got from that money being spent there, the local supermarket and the local mechanic where all of this money ended up. And you know, that has to be taken into account.”
  Direct payments to farmers (pillar 1)
• “Um, thanks very much for a very interesting presentation. And I'll say it again. And it won't make me very popular around here, but, um, you don't get paid probably a fraction of what we do to turn up here. And yet again, I see only a handful of people here. So it's a pity more people weren't here to hear what you have to say, because it is massively important topic. Uh, I doubt there's an MEP when they talk about nature restoration. Don't say it's really, really important. It doesn't seem to be important enough to be here, though. And that saddens me to be quite honest, because it's really important work that's been done. Um, people, uh, farmers are basically being asked to do particular things that maybe they might find challenging. Maybe they might find questionable. And, um, they have uncertainty in their lives because I know from my country, we move from a situation where we were quite literally told we were stupid because we had too many hedgerows. We were shown pictures in geography class of fields in Denmark and told, look at these lovely fields. There's no hedges here, not like in Ireland where, um, we could get more land by chopping them down. So now we're asking them to do the complete opposite, which is a very important thing to do. So Public participation and asking people about this is important because this cycle comes and changes and comes and changes. And I have to say, I don't think there's been consultation with people over the last 50 years. You're told one, one generation, you're a fool for doing it, the next generation you're a fool for not doing it. And that's why for me, public participation is very, very important. And even more important would be MEP participation. But I can dream.”
  Nature protection and restoration in the EU
• “(11:27:06 – 11:28:47): It makes a lot of sense for the EU to promote its food. And in promoting it, obviously, we should be telling the world about its qualities, telling the world about our extensive circular farmers, telling the world about the farming systems that we have that are, well, better than other areas, and that makes sense. But to me, at the same time, we're also saying to justify a Mercosur deal to people like myself who say, sorry. We will not be bringing in product that will be the same standard. I am told, no. Don't worry. We have set up systems to guarantee that it will be just as good. So on one hand, we are told the EU is gonna go out and promote our unique beef products. But in the other hand, we're told, well, don't worry about what's coming in from Mercosur because it's the exact same. Now how can both of them be true? Who are we lying to? Is are our food systems better, which I believe they are? And if they are, why are we lowering our standards? And the question has to be asked, who has anyone ever met anyone on the streets in their town who told you they don't want to eat local products. They want to eat beef from Mercosur. I've never ever met them. And the only thing that's been done to make us feel alright about it is to say, for sure it's all the same. If it's all the same, how the hell can we promote EU products as better? Someone's lying here, and I know who it is.”
  Trade relations with Mercosur
• “At the safeguard clause, to me, is nothing more than political perfume. For a skunk of an agreement. You can spray the perfume around all you want, but the skunk will still smell and I'll still notice it. And many of us have noticed it. I mean, the idea that you can have a threshold of an import of import surge of 10% and say that some sort of safeguard, what's to stop the it going to 9% every year, just below 10% every year. And then gradually the market is taken away from the suckler farmers in the west of Ireland and the farmers in Europe. What's to stop them doing it that way? There are many weaknesses. It's got a high legal threshold, requires proof of serious injury and demanding standard with no binding quantitative figures triggers. It's got unclear. Final criteria. Thresholds are indicative. Only final decisions rely on broad qualitative judgments, and it's full of political risks. The examination procedure allows member states to block or delay measures. It's of it's reactive in its nature. The safeguard guard is curative, not preventative. It addresses harm only after it occurs and does not fix structural issues like unequal production standards or environmental costs. It is my opinion, and it's also the opinion of legal experts, that the safeguard clause for agriculture in the EU marks our agreement is legally cumbersome, temporary and politically constrained, and it makes it an unreliable tool to protect farmers for potential import shocks.”
  Trade relations with Mercosur
• “The aim is to bring the text closer to the requirements of article 29.4 of the Bbnj agreement, to better reflect the conditions for exceptions that applies when environmental impact assessment has already been conducted for a planned activity, in accordance with the requirements of other institutional frameworks and bodies such as Rfmos and regional sea conventions. The rapporteur finally proposes to introduce an article 17, a missing word from article 1902 of the Bbnj Agreement on collaboration with stakeholders and in article 18, some provisions of article 27 of the Bbnj agreement that are missing, and an amendment to clarify cases where, in addition to Member States, the Commission represents the EU in some ifbs such as Rfmos or regional sea conventions. The transposition timetable set by the Committee on the environment is very ambitious. The aim of the Danish Presidency is to conclude the negotiations before the entry into force of the Bbnj agreement, to ensure that the EU complies with international law. This means tight deadlines for the patient opinion. For this reason, the rapporteur hopes that the discussion will be swift and constructive and is looking forward to working with shadow rapporteurs. So thank you very much. And it seems now I've fallen into the trap of becoming a Captain acronym in here as well. But I hope you could follow that.”
  Nature protection and restoration in the EU
• “(10:30:51 – 10:31:34): This is for, DG Grow. The market surveillance regulation, it very clearly states that it needs to be done on a proactive basis rather than a reactive basis. Do the commission themselves actually have the resources to be proactive rather than reactive? Because if it wasn't for the petitions committee, this would never really have come to light. And it's brilliant there was an avenue in, but it seems like a very cumbersome way to deliver the message to the commission. So is there any way to make the commission more proactive proactive rather than reactive? And I I I accept the problem is in my country. Believe me.”
  Overall simplification of regulation in the EU
• “Thank you very much for your presentation. And I've heard a lot of people come in here and explain science. I have never heard anyone do it as well as you, and it was very clear, and I think it's very important that it was clear, because it's obvious that the situation in the Baltic is critical. It's also very clear from your presentation that the map isn't suitable for the current state of the stocks and the Baltic Sea, as both are in such a poor state. And when we were here last December, we heard a presentation from Calum Laudan from ISIS, and he mentioned that ISIS is moving towards an ecosystem based management in its scientific and scientific advice and the need to take into account climate change and the biodiversity crisis. You mentioned just now that there are scientific tools that can help us get there, and are the tools you are referring to, such as the fecal indicator. As part of this, move towards a more ecosystem based fisheries assessment, and how can we ensure that these scientific tools are integrated into ISIS assessment as soon as possible so that can we move away from example managing single species side by side. I just want to say well done. Again, on communicating what you did, because it's so important that people can understand this and it couldn't be clearer. We are in big trouble here.”
  Environmental regulation of fisheries
• “The legislative proposals we are now examining aims to transpose this agreement into EU legislation. It should be noted that the Commission adhered to strict transposition of the agreement, and the proposal provides clarifications for the necessary coordination between member states. The Pesch repertoire fully agrees with this approach. The transposition exercise should be carried out as swiftly as possible. That is the reason why the rapporteur only proposes a few targeted amendments on provisions that touch upon the competences of our committee, and that follow a strict transposition approach. First, she would like to recall that the Bbnj agreement is in line with the Common Fisheries policies. It does not undermine the work of the regional fisheries management organisations or regional sea conventions, whose long standing role in fisheries governance in the high seas is recognised. One of the key aspects of its implementation will be how parties will strengthen and promote cooperation between Rfmos and the work done at the Bbnj to ensure coherence and coordination. That is why the rapporteur proposes to introduce a new recital drawing on the Bbnj agreement requirements for cooperation. It calls on the Commission and Member States to develop internal mechanisms for ensuring the necessary coordination regarding the work conducted under the institutional frameworks and bodies such as Rfmos, when implementing the agreement. In addition, the rapporteur also proposes an amendment to article eight of the Commission's proposal relating to environmental assessments.”
  Environmental regulation of fisheries
• “We had greenwashing in the last cap. And when you look at ANC payments, ANC payments were put down as environmental payments. They weren't environmental payments, they were payments to help people on land where there were constraints. And if we want to guarantee money for agriculture, we've got to remember that there are audiences outside this committee who will look at us and say, well, look, you're trying to con us into saying something is what it isn't, and ultimately we will lose more support and we will lose more money, which we have continuously done over every, every five year cycle or every seven year cycle. So we need to be honest. But to me, I think a lot of this is driven by the fact that there's very, very little money available. And if there's very little money available, the commission's attitude is, well, we mightn't be honest about how much money is available, but what we want to ask anyone to do, Anthon, because we can't. Because we're not putting any money in people's pockets. So I support what you're doing in a sense, Maria. But I think ultimately the problem here is we've no money to pay people to do all this stuff. That's where the ultimate problem is what we do. We're spending it on guns instead.”
  Agricultural funding
• “Sorry. Anya has a camp. Camp here. And I listened to the rapporteur and listened to all the speakers. And well done on all the work that you put into this draft report. And I think it is very, very important to promote our food. And ultimately, what we're trying to do is to get people to buy European food. And in order to do that, and no matter what product you're trying to sell, you'd like to have a unique selling point. And I would say the unique selling point in Europe is that in many cases, our food systems are more sustainable than what the alternative would be, more environmentally friendly. And of course, it could be better, but that we do have a unique product here and it's very important to spend money on that. But at the same time, we have a situation whereby we are signing up to deals where we are told, and in effect, the world is told, don't worry about what we're importing because it is of the same quality. And sure, if it's of the same quality, how can you argue it's the same quality? And then tell people we should buy European food because, well, somehow it's unique and it's better quality. You can't really have the two things at once. So for me, I'll say it again. It's important to promote European food, but the best way to promote farmers and to promote European food is for us to eat it ourselves, and not for people to end up with Brazilian beef on their plate. Because I have never, ever had anyone come up to me in Ireland and say, where can I get some Brazilian beef? But unfortunately, we have politicians that seem to want to force feed it to them, while at the same time saying, we don't want this to ever happen. So for me, the best promotion is to be honest that our food is actually the best and not contradict it. Then by bringing in crap that is nowhere near as good.”
  Import of agri-food products in the EU
• “Commissioner, we meet again. This time I'm agreeing with you. Everyone should get fair remuneration for their work. It's fundamental. It's a human right. And as things stand, many, many farmers do not get fair remuneration. This proposed improve CMO regulation goes some way to improving the lot of farmers. It attempts to enhance the existing provision on contracts, written contracts. There should not be that amazing. Some people seem to think that's amazing. Two to reinforce the bargaining powers of producer organisations, three to simplify their recognition and many other areas. Unfortunately, though, we have MEPs who claim to represent farmers that want to water all of this down. We have amendments that allow member States to do nothing, and it is my experience in Ireland that if we may do something, we will never, ever do it. It will be the case here if they're allowed to make that choice. We also see amendments which would see exemptions given to Member states for the milk sector. And I quote, at the request of an organisation deemed largely representative that is wide open to abuse. For example, in Ireland, the IFA potentially could get such a power, an organisation that has worked against this improved regulation. So I'll finish by saying none of those amendments should be passed. I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Celine Eimert, on this. I have to say, I was skeptical about her at the beginning, but I have to say, I really admire her determination on this. And most of all, I admire her calling out copa-cogeca long overdue.”
  EU policy on farmer–buyer relations in the agri-food supply chain
• “Thanks for this discussion. We seem to talk about forests in this committee more than anything else in this legislature. I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing, but it definitely comes up more often than it ever did. Um, in relation to the statement that forests are a climate sink, they no doubt they are. If they're well managed, they are. And in that context, I'm just wondering what the Commission thinks of a proposal that was made by Minister with responsibility for Forestry in Ireland this week, that in order for Ireland to plant enough trees that we should consider planting on peatland, and we have done that in the past in Ireland. We had a storm recently and you should have a look online of how well a lot this forestry stood up on peatland. It stood up about as well as a Lego tree would put in front of a fan. It blew over. So I'm just wondering what the commission thinks about this idea. And should states tailor what they do with planting trees depending on what type of land they have? And of course, it's it's a good aim for the European Union to plant billions and billions of trees. But, um, there are cases where you have a better carbon sink if you don't plant trees. So I'm just wondering what the commission thinks about that and what sort of incentives could be put in place so that people who own this land could actually benefit more by maintaining the current carbon sink than planting a fake carbon sink.”
  Management of EU forests
• “Thank you. Thank you Commissioner. The commission's words today on a fertiliser strategy directly contradict contradict their cumulative actions over the last three years under the guise of simplification, environmental actions that would have created a more resilient agriculture were gutted and torn apart to appease industrial agriculture in successive mini reforms of caps since 2022. The current model of intensive agriculture has locked farmers into dependencies on imported inputs over which they have no control, mainly feed, fuel and fertiliser. Other options exist that include organic farming, crop rotation and incorporating clover into grasslands that we should be incentivising and transitioning toward in order to protect our food sovereignty. Your goal of simplification is insulting and treats farmers like they are simple and incapable of carrying out practices that would free us from dependence on expensive inputs. The discussion today is focused on how to ensure adequate fertilizers to continue the business as usual model of agriculture, a model that is failing both farmers and the environment. And I will finish by saying this. The real discussion that must be had is how we move to a more sustainable model of producing food that respects planetary boundaries, one that respects reality.”
  Use of fertilisers
• “Surely the the starting point in this debate because we're all well educated enough, I would imagine we've read up on this before we come into the meeting, and you would accept that we do have a problem. Like surely that's a given, unless we're going down the route of madness in politics, and that not only do we have a problem, but it inevitably will cause a problem for agriculture, because if we want to do something about this, we've got to start off with reality. And that is the reality. And one of the biggest problems we have in getting support to do more about this is people are subtly I'm all for pollinators, but there was a line there. I'm not racist, but we know the end of that story. So in order to do something about this, we've got to accept it as a problem. And what we've also got to accept is and I heard about incentives and I heard about incentives for farmers, and I heard about money, but I don't see an awful lot of follow through in that. I heard around the time of the nature restoration law debate, we can't give you any promise of funding, but don't worry, the funding will be on the way. And I have and I've seen and I've experienced that. When you fund farmers, they will do wonderful things and they will turn up for work.”
  Agricultural funding
• “You accuse people on the left of telling lies about this agreement. It's a it's one hell of a claim to make. What lies are you referring to? Is it a lie to say that as a result of this agreement, 9% of all high value beef cuts been sold in the EU will come from Mercosur. Is that a lie? Is it a lie to say that we don't have €1 billion compensation to pay farmers? Is it a lie to say it isn't a win win when suckler farmers in Europe are definitely going to lose? And if dairy farmers are going to win in Europe in, in in Mercosur, they're obviously going to lose. Where is the lies. Can you point them out? Because we're having a debate here. I'd like to know what you're talking about.”
  Trade relations with Mercosur
• “Yeah. Um, only, only just the first thing I want to say is, uh, well done to MEP Sternberg on her draft report. Um, and, uh, I couldn't disagree with the word of it. Um, I suppose the only sad thing is that, uh, we're still at the stage where you'd even have to fight for anything. This should. This should already have happened. You know, they should never be a case that women should have access to less funding from Cap. It should never have been the case that women have less access to finance from banks or from anyone else. And, um, when governments make policy, they should always take women into account, not just take them into account. It should be at their the foremost of their minds. And the mention of healthcare to me is really, really important, particularly in rural areas where in the country that I come from, the policy has been to drive all healthcare into very urban centres, leaving people with two hours, 2.5 hours to travel if they basically if they're having a baby and if they want any sort of healthcare at all. And it just makes it difficult for them to live in the countryside.”
  Gender roles, equality and inclusion