With Parliamentary approval secured for commission nominees, the final barrier to the new Commission taking over was removed a month later than scheduled. While there is a new president and agriculture commissioner, the outgoing agriculture commissioner, Phil Hogan will still be actively involved in issues that shape the future or Irish farming as trade commissioner. The Mercosur deal agreed in June now moves into the approval phase which means getting approval from the EU institutions and member states.

While there are many hurdles to clear, the problem for beef farmers is that they are the only real losers in the deal and with many sectors standing to benefit, there will be a big lobby in favour of it passing. The expected strength of global beef markets going into 2020 will suggest that Ireland and EU farmers have nothing to fear from globalisation.

Budget

The first issue with the CAP programme 2021-2027 is the need to finalise the budget and it is looking increasingly unlikely that the block of northern EU countries will be persuaded to increase their contribution to the overall budget. If that is the case, 5% less money will be available for the CAP budget and along with the switch to an environmental focus, the reality is that the next CAP will be less attractive to productive farmers than the present one.