To ask the Scottish Executive when it will report on the outcome of the Agriculture and Fisheries Council held in Brussels on 20 and 21 February 2003.

I attended the one-day Agriculture and Fisheries Council in Brussels on 20 February 2003, together with Lord Whitty and Mike German.

There were no fisheries items on the agenda on this occasion.

On agriculture, a 10-year extension of the feed additive avilamycin was agreed by qualified majority, the UK supporting the proposal.

The Commission outlined its timetable and plans for GM seeds, co-existence between GM and non-GM agriculture and GM authorisations. On the last of these, the UK supported the Commission’s preference for a case-by-case approach under existing GM legislation. On co-existence, the Commission plans to adopt a communication on 5 March 2003 to inform later debate.

A Commission proposal for consolidating and updating the current EU rules on official food and animal feed controls was also presented. There was no substantive discussion and the Council remitted the dossier for technical discussion.

The Commission reported on recent developments on agriculture in the World Trade Organization (WTO), in particular, on ministerial discussion in Tokyo which had focussed on the first draft of the "modalities" paper prepared by the Chairman of the WTO Agriculture Negotiating Group. Commissioner Fischler criticised the draft as unbalanced but stressed that the EU would continue to negotiate with trading partners on the basis of the EU proposal submitted in January 2003. The UK endorsed this line while noting that agreement on Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) Reform would be the key to development of the EU position.

The Presidency gave a brief report of official level work on the CAP Reform proposals published in January. There was no discussion. A full Council discussion is planned for the March meeting.

Under other business, the Italians signalled their intention to seek approval of a state aid to farmers in serious financial difficulty following the bankruptcy of certain agricultural co-operatives, and Greece reported that extreme weather conditions had caused widespread damage to its farming industry in recent days.