Brussels, 14/01/2011 (Agence Europe) - At a meeting in Brussels on Thursday 13 January of the European Parliament's special committee on political and budget challenges, many MEPs called for spending on the common agricultural policy (CAP) to be kept at its current levels or increased post-2013. EU Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Cioloº also called for farming to be given the budget it needs, warning that if the CAP budget shrinks, then its ambitions will also have to shrink. He argued against the introduction of co-financing of farm spending described as “first pillar” (direct aid and market expenditure).
Salvador Garriga Polledo (EPP, Spain), rapporteur on the summary of the Political Challenges Committee's work, said a strong and well-financed CAP was needed. He pointed out that some EU countries are calling for a reduction in EU spending and/or the CAP's budget, expressing concern also about the role of the CAP in the upcoming Financial Framework because the CAP will be brought into line with the EUROPE 2020 strategy. He sarcastically asked whether people wanted to keep a common agriculture policy with its own category or whether the CAP should be divided up into various objectives (including smart growth)?
At the start, Dacian Cioloº said that ambitious future objectives had been assigned to the CAP and its budget needed to be proportionate with the ambitions. He explained that enlargement had been achieved with virtually the same budget for the CAP in recent years and farmers are asked to do more than simply generate economic performance.
Albert Dess (EPP, Germany) said that the farm aid situation varies in the 27 EU member states, and called for a “fair balancing” of direct payments among countries at the bottom of the scale and those right at the top. He expressed concern about a possible lack of sugar and said that reform should ensure that sugar beet farming continues within the EU. He defended the level of farm spending, agreeing with the commissioner that this is the only part of Europe that is fully EU-run. He added that if social policy, research or education policy were put in the EU budget, then the farm policy would account for a smaller share of the budget. A system needs to be found for ensuring fair and equal competition for all farmers, but the farm market needs some protection at international level to ensure it keeps on securely supplying the amount of food necessary.
Stéphane Le Foll (S&D, France) said that when talking about the CAP, the following four objectives had to be protected - providing enough food, protecting the environment, preserving a diversity of European farming and growing high-quality products. Farming, together with the entire agrifood industry, is the highest employer at EU level, explained Le Foll. The S&D Group opposes the idea of cutting the CAP budget, pointing out that we are at a level of co-funding that must not be expanded because otherwise there will be a re-nationalising of the CAP that will be incredibly risky because it will lead to a generalised free-for-all competition among countries. Stéphane Le Foll stressed the need to defend at EU level everything encouraging traceability and high-quality in EU farming.
Savings have to be made in the CAP, warned Finland's Carl Haglund, speaking on behalf of ALDE. He said that there is huge pressure on the budget and member states are concerned about their spending in this time of crisis, pointing out that a letter was sent in December 2010 by five EU countries calling for a freezing of the EU budget.
Bas Eickhout (Greens/EFA, the Netherlands) called for a change in the current CAP and money to enable the changes to be made. The option of business-as-usual (the first option set out in a Commission report on the CAP post-2013) is not a serious option, he said, wanting greater explanation of what is actually done with public spending. On the second option (a better sharing of payments), the Greens/EFA have questions about the “greening” of aid. The Commission suggests providing compulsory EU aid for “environmental public goods”, but tangible details are needed about what is meant by the greening of expenditure, said Eickhout. Moreover, the Greens have doubts about the idea of a totally new system for small farmers and smallholders because of the danger of encouraging industrialisation of farming. The Greens say the important thing is the quality, rather than the quantity, of food. Bas Eickhout asserted that small farmers should be better able to deal with climate change and this was good support for them. The EU needs a vision of territorial cohesion and to see how Rural Development Policy and the Cohesion Policy can contribute to this, he said. The Commission's report says nothing about the CAP's impact on developing countries. Dumping in developing countries must stop, he added, noting that farmers in developing countries should be helped to provide value-added at home rather than exporting basic products to Europe.
The total size of the EU budget will be frozen and that means that farming will have to compete with other resources, said Richard Ashworth (ECR, UK). This was good news for the CAP, which has a role to play in EUROPE 2020, he said, noting that farming and rural development had to answer consumer expectations. The CAP can also boost the environment and the economy, he said, explaining that the agrifood industry is not growing fast enough and pay levels are very low (on average 50% less than pay in other industries). He criticised the differences between old and new member states in terms of the amount of aid received. The CAP will remain a large part of the EU budget but priority and just returns should be the priority in terms of income.
Farmers will have to be helped in one form or another, explained Cornelis de Jong (GUE/NGL, the Netherlands), arguing that solidarity must be shown with developing countries. There must be an end to the confusion around CAP objectives, he added.
My political party does not support the CAP, said the UK's Marta Andreasen (EFD).
Paolo de Castro (S&D, Italy), chair of the EP's agriculture committee, said that it was not acceptable to cut the farm budget, pointing out that 14 million farmers manage more than half the EU land. Financial committements must be kept at the same level in the future as they are today, added Paolo de Castro.
In response to a series of questions about budget matters, Cioloº started by discussing the damaging impact of not having the CAP, like a concentration of farming in areas of fertile land and rural desertification in non-fertile areas. In areas where farming would be concentrated, there would be vast pressure on natural resources and problems with providing safe, high-quality food and enough of it.
Cioloº said that reducing the EU budget would not reduce the overall budget for farming in Europe but would simply transfer the burden to member states' budgets. He said that for various reasons, like farmers' income, the production of food and regional balance, farming would have to receive aid, no matter what, and he believed that many countries wanted to support farming. He said that the farm budget is 39% of the EU's total budget but less than 1% of EU GDP. If the EU budget is reduced, that will mean greater pressure on national budgets and the weakening of an EU policy, argued the commissioner.
The commissioner said he thought the CAP was a policy that made efficient use of the budget for both traditional and EU 2020 objectives, and farmers cannot be expected to do more in addition to purely economic issues with less funding. EU farmers have to compete with the global market and much more is asked of EU farmers than of farmers elsewhere in the world.
Co-financing. The CAP's “first pillar” (direct income support, remuneration for the public good) is 100% funded from the EU budget. The “second pillar” (rural development) is partially funded by national budgets because it covers regional aspects. The commissioner highlighted the dangers of co-funding of “first pillar” expenditure like a postcode lottery in the amount of aid farmers receive, depending on which country they live in.
Farming's place in the budget. The CAP is a separate EU policy whose objectives are set out in the EU Treaty and it meets EUROPE 2020 strategy objectifies. The commissioner explained that the CAP did not fully fit in the EUROPE 2020 strategy because some of the CAP's objectives are not covered by the strategy, but some aspects of the farm policy did meet EUROPE 2020 strategy targets.
Rural development and cohesion. There is a big temptation for some people to merge various funds to make them easier to manage. Cioloº said he had already had talks with Regional Policy Commissioner, Johannes Hahn, and they both believed that the best solution is to keep the rural development policy separate from cohesion policy, with separate rules for each. Greater policy coordination was required, however, implementing a strategic EU framework to allow the regions to ensure greater coherence in their use of the rural development policy and the cohesion policy.
Fairness. The Commission suggests that farm payments be made fairer and criteria applied in the same way in all countries, scrapping references to past practices, explained the commissioner. He conceded that this balance would depend on the overall budget. (L.C./transl.fl)