EU Budgets
Dail Éireann — 2026-10-01
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Thomas Byrne (FF), Meath East

Food security is one of the foundational reasons for the European Union's existence. The Common Agricultural Policy is a treaty-based policy which the European Union has long been committed to. However, some member states tell us that we need to look at other priorities, particularly competitiveness, as I mentioned. We are trying to get agreement on that. It is also fair to say that in my discussions with Ministers around the European table, many of them have prioritised the Common Agricultural Policy and particularly those policies in heading 1 of the multi-annual financial framework proposal.
Regarding the Common Agricultural Policy in general and the questions raised by Deputy Moynihan, there are two questions. One question is the overall size of the budget. We have heard some of the contributor countries say that they want the budget proposal to be reduced by several hundred billion euro. It is not just the size of the budget, though. It is also about where the priorities within the size of the budget are as well. Again, some member states emphasise what they call more modern priorities. The Government's position has been made very clearly. Last year, we thought it was important to get our spoke out to say what our priorities were, so that we could play the honest broker role, which I have been doing. I have chaired the meetings of the General Affairs Council. I have met each minister for Europe or foreign minister on the MFF in the past month, in a confidential format to find out where they are. We will propose our negotiating document in the coming period. That is not the end of the line. That would be a pointer towards the leaders getting this agreement over the line. It is hoped that our negotiating box will allow the leaders to come to an agreement. What they agree could be different and could be better or worse, from different people's point of view. It could also be different at the end of the day. In the next few weeks, our negotiating box is not the end of the story. The end of the story is when the leaders agree at the European Council. All of them have to agree and the European Parliament has to consent to the final outcome on the amount. There is a lot of work to do even after we put forward our negotiating box.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-10-01/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-10-05T01:01:00+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-10-01