UUP MEP claims Victory over issue of Voluntary Modulation
UUP MEP Jim Nicholson has claimed a victory for Northern Ireland’s agriculture community and for the European Parliament in the battle over voluntary modulation.
The so-called ‘voluntary modulation’ proposals would allow Britain to voluntarily withhold up to one fifth of farmers’ CAP payments, and redistribute that funding into rural development schemes. The Prime Minister negotiated the deal as part of the EU’s budget settlement in December 2005 after Britain’s lacklustre negotiating skill secured a measly 2.5 percent of the EU’s rural development budget.
In a statement Mr Nicholson said,
“The deadlock on this issue looks like it has been broken. I am confident that the Parliament’s agriculture committee will pass the proposals today and that the Budgets committee will free up the funds it has been holding back this Wednesday.
“The British government have agreed to a number of major concessions over plans to cut UK farmers’ subsidies by a fifth including a full impact assessment to look at the impact this will have on farmers, a commitment not to modulate the full 20% and significant match funding.
“There are still some concerns over regionalisation, which takes into account the varying circumstances facing farmers across the UK because this is a devolved matter and I would urge any future agriculture Minister to set modulation at the lowest possible level.
“It has been a serious concern of mine that rural development programmes would have been held up by this fiasco, but surely it was better to hold out for a deal that will be far better for our farmers in the long-term. However, we wouldn’t have been in this position in the first place, if our government had have been more effective at negotiating a better deal for rural development.
“To all those who have claimed that the European Parliament is a toothless, useless tiger, this issue has proven that the Parliament can be a positive force for change and can have relevance in people’s everyday lives.”