EU TRADE commissioner Peter Mandelson has hit back at the Irish Farmers Association for linking ongoing world trade negotiations with next month's vote on the European treaty and has accused it of getting its facts wrong.
"Irish beef is the premium pasture-based beef that is favoured both by the Common Agricultural Policy and by European consumers and nothing in the [trade negotiations] will change that," said Mr Mandelson yesterday.
"I don't think the Doha talks should get mixed up with the Lisbon Treaty or any referendum on it," he warned.
Obviously prepared for a question on the Irish situation which came during a briefing on an unrelated topic, the commissioner said: "Beef tariffs would not come down by 70 per cent with a successful Doha deal as some are suggesting in Ireland. We will propose that beef be treated as a sensitive product and this means a reduction of just 23 per cent."
Mr Mandelson, who is representing the EU in the global trade talks known as the Doha round, also noted that "the off-setting import quota" would be borne by the EU as a whole and not just Ireland.
"So the Irish Farmers Association are getting their facts wrong," he said.
The defence comes as Brussels officials are getting nervous about the prospects of a "No" to the Lisbon Treaty, amid reports about the negative stance of farmers, the apparent reluctance of trade unions to support the document and the "No" side's rise in opinion polls. "The Lisbon Treaty is good for Ireland . . . The same is true of a Doha deal," said Mr Mandelson.
He suggested that farmers are nervous about the EU's planned Cap reform and that they have fixated on the World Trade Organisation talks as part of this fear.
"Irish farming is probably one of the largest if not the largest per capita recipients of farm support in the EU and that makes change inevitable as that farm support is reformed. What Doha enables us to do is to force others to make the same changes as we are choosing to do in Europe and to create an even playing field on which European farmers can compete." The commissioner said the "particular needs and interests" of Irish farmers will be "accommodated".
He also pointed to the importance of the talks to the country as a whole, noting that Ireland has "4 per cent of the world's service industry", meaning it has a "huge stake" in the successful outcome of the negotiations.