McConalogue confirms receipt of European Commission’s observations letter in respect of Ireland’s draft CAP Strategic Plan 2023-27
- Published on: 1 April 2022
- Last updated on: 3 May 2022
The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue, today confirmed that Ireland has received the European Commission’s Observations letter in respect of Ireland’s draft CAP Strategic Plan.
The Minister said:
“The receipt of the Observations letter from the European Commission marks another important milestone in the development of Ireland’s CAP Strategic Plan for the period 2023 to 2027. Ireland is one of the nineteen Member States who submitted their plans ahead of the statutory deadline of 1 January 2022, and to whom the Commission is now responding following an assessment by all of the relevant Commission services, including those responsible for agriculture, climate and the environment.”
Commenting further on the extensive nature of the response, Minister McConalogue said:
“It is clear that the Commission has carried out a comprehensive assessment of our draft Plan. The observations are lengthy, covering the three general objectives of the CAP, the nine specific objectives, the cross-cutting knowledge, innovation and digitalisation objective, the strategic focus of the Plan and the individual interventions that Ireland has proposed. They comprise a mixture of high-level and more detailed, technical observations. The Commission has also asked all Member States to review their Plans in the context of the impacts arising from the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the need to strengthen the sector’s resilience while also achieving greater environmental sustainability, and this is something we will reflect further on.”
Noting the Commission’s intention to publish Member States’ Observations letters in three weeks’ time, and its openness to receiving written initial reactions from Member states in the meantime, Minister McConalogue indicated that he and his colleagues will now take a little time to examine the Commission’s letter in detail and will share it with stakeholders shortly. He said:
“My colleagues Pippa Hackett, Martin Heydon and I will receive a full briefing on all elements of the Commission’s observations from department officials in the coming days. We will then share the contents with stakeholders in advance of a meeting of the CAP Stakeholder Consultative Committee. We will continue to consult stakeholders as the approval process unfolds over the coming months, and I look forward also to the continuation of the structured dialogue with the Commission which has proven to be very effective to date.”
Notes
More information on Ireland’s CAP Strategic Plan is available at www.gov.ie/cap.