Foreign Minister Joe Borg said yesterday the European Commission's reform plans for the EU's Common Agricultural Policy seemed to favour small leaseholds and small farms.

In his first reaction to the commission's review, he said the move would be positive for Malta.

He also said that the proposals focused on the challenges faced by smaller farms.

Dr Borg said the government would be taking a detailed look at the proposed reforms and study how they would affect Malta.

The proposed reforms should speed up enlargement negotiations on agriculture because they went in the direction of proposals the European Commission prepared for the candidate countries.

The commission presented its reform plans for CAP on Wednesday.

The proposals include:

¤ direct aid to farmers based on historical payments and conditional on compliance with tougher environmental, food safety and animal welfare standards;

¤ introduction of a new farm audit system;

¤ cutting down red tape: less administration for the farmers;

¤ €300,000 cap on annual payments to any single farmer;

¤ 10 per cent of the land to be taken out of production for the next 10 years;

¤ reduction of direct aid to large-scale farmers by three per cent a year for the next seven years;

¤ 20 per cent of direct payments taken away from farmers to be used for rural development;

¤ five per cent cut in cereals intervention prices;

¤ complete abolition of intervention for rye;

¤ reduction in the special premium for durum wheat.