The National Farmers Union has given its backing to a proposed 10-year transition period for applying the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) to central and eastern European countries joining the European Union.

NFU president Ben Gill said plans to give new member states more structural payments and less direct support initially before gradually harmonising them with the 15 existing members. This would help them restructure, therefore making a more level within a larger EU.

But he stressed that quotas given to the new countries are fair, with no preferential treatment.

Mr Gill is also president of the Confederation of European Agriculture, which brings together the member states and the applicant countries, and will be an important forum for discussion of the commission's proposals.

'The entry of these heavily agricultural countries in Europe obviously has major implications for the CAP and therefore a direct impact on UK farmers,' he said, 'so the commission's agricultural proposal today is vital in setting a sensible framework within which this can happen.'