Ray MacSharry related content 

We will look back on the latest reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy as a massive missed opportunity. The hue and cry of winners and losers will dominate debate about...

Former commissioner wants to join low-cost airline, which has long been at odds with the Commission. Charlie McCreevy, the European commissioner for the internal market from...

Due in November 2009 – or in 2014. Perversely, the Irish ‘No' vote may cause Ireland to lose its commissioner next year. Under current EU rules, the EU is obliged to...

The appointment of Dirk Ahner as director-general for regional policy came as a surprise when it was announced in November 2006. It was also a disappointment for his...

The EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has had just about three years to digest the last round of reforms agreed in 2003. Though billed as a straightforward mid-term...

When Bobby McDonagh arrived in Brussels last July as Ireland's permanent representative to the EU it was a bit like a homecoming. He may only once before have been officially...

AGRICULTURE Commissioner Franz Fischler will next week urge Germany and France to abandon their bid to exclude the dairy sector from the Common Agricultural Policy reforms,...

As the EU's leaders assemble in Vienna for the Austrian presidency's showpiece meeting, eight of them are honing plans to reclaim powers and budgetary authority long since...

THE current round of Common Agricultural Policy reforms is generally agreed to be essential to the EU's planned expansion to the East, and is a prerequisite for maintaining...

As the battle over reform of the Common Agricultural Policy begins in earnest, Myles Neligan assesses the chances of Union governments accepting the European's Commission...

PETER Sutherland sometimes resembles a former school prefect who so loved his Alma Mater that he could not accept that his schooldays really were over. It is almost a decade...

THE half-century-old relationship between multilateral trade organisations and the European Communities has been a lot less fraught than generally believed. Trust may have...

Geoff Meade takes a light-hearted look at life in the European UnionCOMPROMISE (noun):- "Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction...

AGRICULTURE Commissioner Franz Fischler's plans to reform the EU's costly system of farm support face a rough ride when farm ministers gather next week in the town of...

LAST year's ‘mad cow' crisis offered Austria's first European Commissioner Franz Fischler a public profile rarely enjoyed by his predecessors in the agriculture hot seat....

AGRICULTURE may only account for 2.5% of Europe's gross domestic product, but it continues to swallow up almost half of the EU's 89-billion-ecu budget. Opponents of such...

WHEN MEPs on the European Parliament's temporary committee of inquiry into BSE meet Commission President Jacques Santer next week to discuss their findings after six months...

IF they are to work effectively, the European Parliament's committees of inquiry must have the right to insist that witnesses appear, and be guaranteed improved and automatic...

AGRICULTURE ministers face an uphill struggle to carve out a deal on European Commission proposals for sharp cuts in aid payments to EU cereal farmers. Intended as a means...

AGRICULTURE Commissioner Franz Fischler is coming under increasing pressure to give a clear direction to future EU farm policy. The growing clamour for the Commissioner to...