19-20 October Agriculture Council

THE EU agriculture ministers' monthly meeting, although primarily devoted to a further discussion of the Agenda 2000 farm reforms, was overshadowed by recent suggestions from the European Commission that the burden of Union budgetary contributions could be more evenly shared by allowing national governments to bear 25% of the cost of direct aids to farmers. At the end of the two-day meeting, ministers declared that they were on target to meet the March 1999 deadline for finalising the farm reform project, but said that several countries were pushing hard to open a formal debate on the financing of the Common Agricultural Policy. "There is a real determination to meet the deadline, but the issue of co-financing overshadows the whole process," said UK farm minister Nick Brown. His Finnish counterpart Kaveli Hemila said "the odds have moved to 60/40 that it will be done under the German presidency".