Royal Highland Show, Scotland
On Thursday June 24, Commissioner Dacian Cioloș attended the Royal Highland Show just outside Edinburgh. The Commissioner took great interest in the livestock aspects of the show, visiting the sheep pens and the cattle competitions.
The main event was a seminar on the future of the CAP, where the Commissioner and EP COMAGRI Chair Paolo De Castro addressed an audience of key stakeholders and media. In his presentation, the Commissioner underlined the importance of making our direct payments system more understandable to the wider public in future. In this context, he stressed his support for continuing a "2 Pillar" system, but outlined his openness to adjust the existing Pillars – and his willingness to consider various suggestions raised by Scottish MEP George Lyon in his European Parliament own-initiative report on the future of the CAP.
The Commissioner also held a bilateral meeting with Scottish Agriculture Minister Richard Lochhead and heard from Brian Pack – an industry expert specially mandated by the Scottish government to report on the future of the CAP from a Scottish perspective, whose report will be published in September.
