This coming week is one of three or four big meetings. I wrote this blog as I was travelling out for Monday’s Council of Ministers meeting in Brussels.  The Irish Presidency will report back on its negotiations with the representatives of … Continue reading →

Today we pass another significant milestone on the journey to the new CAP in Scotland, with the publication of the first of two consultation documents on the next Scotland Rural Development Programme, and the first of our roadshow of evening … Continue reading →

It’s a sunny morning here in Luxembourg, and it looks like we’ll have something to smile about when the Council of Ministers meets this morning. It must be at least a year and a half, possibly longer, since we flagged … Continue reading →

Phew!  It’s 5pm and the last of the attendees at our conference on modelling future direct payments have left. There were times in the run-up when I wondered if we’d bitten off more than we could chew.  The subject matter … Continue reading →

Earlier this week at our stakeholder group meeting, apart from updating everyone on the events of the past couple of weeks in the Council of Ministers and European Parliament, the main agenda item was sharing some initial results from the … Continue reading →

Rural Affairs Secretary Richard Lochhead blogs about the outcome of two days of CAP reform talks in Brussels. Important, exasperating, lengthy. These are just some of the word that could be used to describe the two days of talks on … Continue reading →

You may have heard journalists on the TV or radio saying that you can tell how serious an international meeting is by how many clean shirts the delegates have brought with them. Agriculture and Fisheries Council is usually a one … Continue reading →

We passed a big milestone in the CAP negotiations yesterday when the European Parliament voted through its position on the proposals.  There was an air of excitement in our office as, while some of us were going in and out … Continue reading →

Somebody asked me at an event earlier this week how the CAP reform negotiations are going in the Council of Ministers. By about the end of February, I’d say something like 75% of the text had been pretty much agreed … Continue reading →

Last Thursday I was with the Cabinet Secretary at the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee of the Scottish Parliament.  Although the main subject matter was climate change, some aspects of the CAP came up, including greening of Pillar 1 … Continue reading →