Brussels, 21/10/2010 (Agence Europe) - European agricultural organisations have strongly criticised the European Commission intention to “sideline” the economic objectives of the common agricultural policy (CAP) in its review of the EU budget.
Padraig Walshe, the president of COPA (Committee of Professional Agricultural Organisations in the EU), warned that the EU could not achieve its environmental and climate change objectives “unless farmers are economically viable”. Reinforcing the economic role of farmers in producing food must be central to the future CAP. Faced with rising food demand, “food security can no longer be taken for granted”, he added. “The Commission's new proposal for a mandatory greening of the CAP, could only be envisaged if there were an increase in the current CAP budget,” Walshe said.
The Commission's future budget plan raises the possibility of giving priority to environmental and climate change objectives in the CAP, rather than to economic objectives. This worries the farming industry.
The Commission document begins by pointing out that a sustainable EU economy needs “a thriving agricultural sector making its contribution to a wide variety of EU objectives - including cohesion, climate change, environmental protection and biodiversity, health and competitiveness, as well as food security”. A series of reforms to the CAP has seen support to farmers increasingly linked to delivering these objectives and the CAP's share of the overall budget fall steadily in recent years. “Continuing the trend would still leave agriculture representing a major public investment, one falling on the EU's shoulders rather than on national budgets,” the communication also says.
The reform of the CAP could, therefore, be pursued with “different degrees of intensity”. It could restrict itself to ironing out some current discrepancies, such as bringing greater equity between member states and farmers in the distribution of direct payments. It could make major overhauls of the policy in order to ensure that it becomes more sustainable. “A more radical reform would go further, moving away from income support and most market measures, and giving priority to environmental and climate change objectives rather than the economic and social dimensions of the CAP,” the Commission states. (L.C./transl.rt)