Brussels, 25/02/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 28t February, Albert Dess (EPP, Germany) will present members of the committee on agriculture at the European Parliament with his draft report on the post-2013 reform of the common agriculture policy (CAP). Some of his ideas are highly controversial, such as transferring credits from the first pillar (direct aid and marketing expenditure) to the second pillar (rural development) to pay for "greening" measures for certain CAP aid. The parliamentary committee will vote on this on 2 May. The EP will give its opinion at the plenary session in early June.
Contrary to the position of the European Commission, which proposed the inclusion of a green component in the direct payment (first pillar of the CAP), the German Christian Democrat MEP wants to establish a link between this aid and a “priority catalogue” of greening measures which would come under the second pillar, in other words rural development (fight against soil erosion, crop rotation, innovation, etc). These would be 100% funded by the EU (sanctions in the form of a reduction in the direct payment would be possible for farmers not respecting at least two resource protection programmes). For this financing, the EP stresses that sufficient funds would have to be transferred from the direct payments budget into the second pillar. There seems to be practically unanimity against him on this idea of transferring credits. The rapporteur also proposes: - a fairer redistribution of aid between the member states (and between the farmers of a given member state); - a safety net, at several levels, in the form of market measures (private storage public intervention, combating market disturbances and safeguard clause to allow the Commission to react quickly in the event of crisis). (L.C./transl.fl)