As January looms, the new Latvian Presidency of the council is preparing to kick into action. With the new European Parliament and Commission firmly in office, the first quarter of 2015 promises to be very busy from an EU Agri legislation front. Apart from dairy issues dealt with extensively elsewhere in this newsletter the following will look at the other key Agri issues that will be dealt with.

New CAP:

The new era has kicked into gear since January 1^st, all eyes will be on how national governments use their discretion to implement the new programmes. There are fears that the new Common Agriculture Policy may not be so common, and also the effects of the new ‘greening’ regime.

Rural Development Plans:

Acceptance of Irish & other Rural Development plans to 2020 are still ongoing despite the new CAP supposedly coming into being in January. Several countries have been approved, but Ireland still has no green light because of a number of questions put the Department by the Commission regarding the draft plans they submitted to them. There is some speculation that it could be as far as April before the Irish Rural development plan is passed.

Other Files in the Latvian Presidency Work Programme:

The Commission seems to be engaging in a policy shift in supporting the pork market and now seems to be considering a targeted level of support through a private storage aid scheme in early 2015.

A new Emissions Trading Scheme for Green House Gas emissions for Food processing plants is gathering momentum that will feed into a big climate change conference to be held in Paris later in the year.

There will also be new laws down for discussion of interest to the Irish Agri Business sector around organics, the school milk scheme, vet medications, forestry, seed law and retail/food chain issues.