The bodies representing European farmers must avoid creating the impression that the positions they have taken on the updated CAP essentially consist of defending funding and other advantages guaranteed to them under the current CAP. The level of this funding and the benefits can only be defended because of the role played by farming in the EU. It is indispensable to Europe and the world (see this column yesterday). Awareness of this is growing among political leaders and the public. It is essential that this role becomes obvious to all. I will restrict myself to the bare minimum and simply summarise what, in my opinion, is essential. My apologies to our readers for whom most of the following comments do not contain anything new.
Protecting nature, the landscape and traditions. There is now broad agreement on all of these factors. In regions where ancient agricultural traditions exist, the knowledge and methods used in the past are once again being revalued, as is their historic importance to European civilisation. There is a growing tendency to move beyond this stage and confirm agricultural activity, in all its different forms, with a global role of territorial and land management. The damage provoked by attacks on the natural environmental balance, such as in the domain of water, can be seen by all. From an economic point of view, agri-tourism in certain regions already accounts for a fifth of agricultural enterprises' income, which benefits them and those living in the cities.
Food self-sufficiency. I will once again reaffirm the conviction that in today's world, Europe's food autonomy as a whole is a pre-requisite for any kind of autonomy.
Taking part in the fight against starvation in the world. European agricultural production will have an increasing role to play, faced with the explosion in world population growth. Destroying or even radically reducing part of this production would be a crime against humanity.
The real cost of the CAP. The experts calculate the current cost of the CAP at around €55 billion a year, which corresponds to approximately 44% of the EU budget. It is often forgotten, however, that: agriculture represents the only domain where European policy funding is of an entirely Community-based nature. All the other areas where the EU plays a role are mainly financed out of national budgets, such as cohesion policy, transport and so on and so forth. By taking European and national expenditure into account, agriculture accounts for around 1% of public spending in the EU. Let's not forget that one area of the CAP covers the development of rural zones, namely, initiatives and activities other than agricultural production. If these components were not included in the CAP budget, this budget would not go beyond 25 or 30% of the EU's overall budget.
It would be unreasonable to transfer a significant part of spending to the national budgets because certain member states would not be able to fund certain indispensable aspects of the CAP themselves (see the following point).
Product quality, respect for animal welfare and environmental protection. The EU is continuing to toughen up its rules on these different aspects, while obtaining increasing public support. These are now crucial areas of the CAP (they would also have considerable repercussions on trade policy, a subject to which this column will be returning). For the time being, I will simply contest the thesis affirming that the EU should, in the context of political support to poor countries, further open up its borders, without demanding respect for its internal rules. The EU is and will remain the biggest importer of typical products, whether these come from Africa or elsewhere. It has been quite convincingly proved that a more unbridled opening up, however, would have a negative effect on poor countries, by encouraging disastrous monoculture exports in their countries, to the benefit of the giant multinationals, as well create corruption at a local level. It would make these countries increasingly dependent on food for feeding their respective populations. Their subsistence farming would be ruined and their food self-sufficiency and development destroyed.
Support for victory. Agricultural producer bodies do have an interest in putting forward the aspects cited above. This list could be quite easily extended by, for example, mentioning the demand for tackling international price volatility for basic agricultural products. If the organisations representing agriculture exclusively focused on their demands concerning intervention measures and the level of EU budgetary support, it would be difficult for them to obtain, in the debate on updating the CAP, the support they need from the different political forces and public opinion. (F.R./transl.fl)