Brussels, 04/05/2012 (Agence Europe) - The plenary session of the Committee of the Regions (CoR) adopted its opinion on the reform of the common agricultural policy (CAP) on Friday 4 May. The elected representatives from Europe's regions backed the opinion of René Souchon (PES, France) which states, purely and simply, that the Commission's proposals are too far removed from the in-depth reform of the CAP that is essential for the preservation of European agriculture and rural areas.
What disappoints the CoR is that the sharing of aid is still too unequal. It calls for degression thresholds to be reduced above €100,000 in aid, with a €200,000 cap per farm. It argues that the link should be retained between aid and certain produce or certain, still fragile, regions. It takes the view that the raft of greening measures is too rigid to provide solutions suited to local needs, even though this change of production model is necessary. The CoR fully recognises the need for measures to encourage sustainable farming but feels the measures proposed by the Commission are inappropriate, as they are too general. Committee members, then, call for greater subsidiarity and also greater synergies with other policies, such as fisheries, climate and energy. Further, they do not like the term “young farmer” and would prefer a term indicating a newly established farmer so that support can be provided for all planning to move into farming. With regard to the budget (€435.6 billion over the period 2014-2020), the CoR believes that, in these times of crisis, it is all the more important that an ambitious level of funding should be kept in place for the CAP. (MD/transl.rt)