getting decisions on health check

Getting decisions on the Health Check

With 27 member states the whole negotiating process in the Farm

Council has become a lot more difficult, not that it was ever easy.

Another complication is that fisheries matters are now dealt with in

the Farm Council and this means that the December meeting is the scene

for an inevitable battle between fisheries ministers over quotas.

The only effective way to proceed is to forge compromises outside the

Council chamber through bilaterals between the Presidency/Commission

and individual ministers. A lot then depends on the negotiating skill

of the Presidency, but the Portuguese Presidency is judged to have

been a success. Slovenia is the first transition state to be in the

chair, but both its farm minister and its officials enjoy a good

reputation.

The Health Check will have to be finalised at the end of this year

under the French presidency. France will probably try to get a deal in

November as it can then include some direct reference to the Health

Check in its final Summit conclusions, presumably providing some form

of wording that would support French ambitions in the 2009 review of

the EU budget with the objective of maintaining high levels of CAP

spending after 2009.

Another reason to get a deal before December is that this would leave

little time for lawyers and linguists to check it before the end of

the year. This could then open up the prospect of a challenge from

MEPs on the grounds that they should have had co-decision powers on

the Health Check. Life under co-decision will be interesting once the