AGRICULTURE/AGENDA 2000: EURO-MPS PREPARE TO ENDORSE CAP REFORMS.

Although the Committee, chaired by Juan Luis Colino Salamanca (PES, Spain), is not entirely happy with the Berlin agreement, it finds it more acceptable than the original, more drastic, Commission proposals. MEPs, who are very concerned to preserve the 'European agricultural model', based on quality, diversity, sustainable rural development and fair incomes for farmers, regard the deal as the best that can be obtained, although they will seek to put their mark on the package by tabling a dozen amendments at the May 5 plenary session, reflecting compromises hammered out with the Commission and Council.Amendments to common organisation of various markets.For the dairy sector, Lutz Goepel (EPP, Germany) will press the Commission to review the current arrangements in 2002 and put forward proposals as soon as possible for replacing milk quotas after 2006.Georges Garot (PES, France) is holding out for more generous public intervention measures in the beef and veal sector than those agreed in Berlin. He will be asking for the critical market price which will trigger public buying-in to be set at Euro 2000 per tonne instead of Euro 1,560 per tonne, and for intervention prices to be laid down rather than being determined under tender procedures. He will also press for higher premiums.In the cereals sector, Parliament has secured the retention of the 10% base rate for compulsory set-aside it demanded, as well as the maintenance of monthly increments. Giulio Fantuzzi (PES, Italy) will however call for the cuts in compensation for oilseed and linseed producers to be phased in over four years rather than in three stages.Philippe Martin (UFE, France), rapporteur on the wine reforms, does not want Sweden, Denmark and Ireland to be counted as traditional Community wine-growing regions and is calling for wine and its health benefits to be promoted on export markets.Direct support schemes.The proposals for direct support schemes to producers under the CAP were approved unamended in Committee. Under the Berlin agreement's provisions for "modulation", Member States will have the option of reducing payments by up to 20%, while "degressivity", or phasing out aid, has been dropped. However, the German rapporteur for the Greens, Friedrich-Wilhelm Graefe zu Baringdorf, will be tabling an amendment in plenary calling for binding annual reductions in direct aid, with the savings yielded redirected to sustainable rural development.At the last meeting...