Brussels, 08/04/2011 (Agence Europe) - The rapporteur for the European Parliament (EP) special committee on the EU financial framework from 2014 set the tone. For the common agricultural policy (CAP), he made clear to the EP agriculture committee, any funding increase on the 2013 budget is out of the question. The agriculture budget will not even be index linked.
On 28 March, the agriculture committee adopted an “opinion” on the report which the special committee is preparing on the future EU budget. This opinion says that the budget allocated from 2014 to the agriculture policy should be at least as much as the current budget. The opinion points out that the proportion of the overall EU budget devoted to the CAP has for many years been falling: from 75% in 1985 to an expected 39.3% in 2013, a figure equivalent to less than 0.45% of the total EU GDP. Yet agricultural policy makes an essential contribution to the food security of 500 million Europeans and agriculture provides 13.6 million jobs, forms the basis for 5 million more in Europe's agri-food industry and directly protects and maintains 47% of the land of the European Union.
The committee stress, too, that the CAP has a multi-purpose role, since agriculture provides public goods (environmental protection, maintaining biodiversity) and is often the only economic activity in disadvantaged and mountainous regions. Following the vote in committee, Giovanni La Via told his colleagues that the rapporteur for the special committee on the future budget of the EU, Spanish Christian Democrat Salvador Garriga Polledo, had told him that, in his report, he would not agree to any form of words that goes beyond saying that the CAP might retain a budget that is unchanged from 2013 - this to be taken to the letter, with no index linking to take account of inflation and no increase to take account of future trade agreements. (L.C./transl.rt)