Brussels, 12/10/2012 (Agence Europe) - As European negotiations on the multiannual financial framework 2014-2020 and on common agricultural policy (CAP) reform enter the decisive phase, the French and Spanish agriculture ministers, Stéphane Le Foll and Miguel Arias Cañete, underlined, on Thursday 11 October, how important the CAP is for growth, employment, the environment and innovation in European rural areas, and for the role played by Europe in balancing food globally. For that reason, they consider that the Commission's proposal concerning agricultural spending 2014-2020 is an “absolute minimum”. Furthermore, both countries accept some convergence of the level of aid between member states, if that level is reasonable, progressive and concerns both pillars of the CAP (direct aid and rural development).
A few days earlier, France and Germany had called for the current level of post-2013 agricultural funding to be maintained (see EUROPE 10707).
France and Spain express their support for keeping in place a programme for the distribution of food to the very poor, within the next multiannual financial framework.
On the subject of reforming direct aid, the ministers underline that compulsory convergence within each State towards a flat rate over the next period is not applicable. Member states must, France and Spain say, be able to have a certain amount of flexibility for the internal convergence of first pillar aid in order to avoid destabilising agricultural regions and sectors. Both ministers also demonstrate joint determination to be able to choose not to grant payment entitlements to certain specific surface areas.
Greening. France and Spain may support the general guidelines of the Commission's proposals on the greening of agricultural subsidies on condition that adjustments are made in order to facilitate application of those guidelines and that farmers comply with obligations, without this being a burden on farm production.
The ministers underline the need to keep in place a framework of subsidies coupled to production within the first pillar of the CAP, with a sufficient budget to allow specific sectoral difficulties to be faced.
Investments for improving irrigation are used for the funding of work that allows energy and water efficiency to be improved, and for improvements to be made in regulation capacity (including holding substitute sources) and the use of recycled water.
Le Foll and Cañete call for provisions to be adopted to allow better response capacity in the case of market crisis, through the use of effective instruments. They underline the importance of having a crisis reserve for the agricultural sector as proposed by the Commission, and also the need to safeguard corresponding funding in budgetary negotiation underway.
Sectors. France and Spain speak of their attachment to planting rights for vineyards and the need to extend sugar quotas until 2020.
They also recommend strengthening the economic power of producers in the supply chain. It is appropriate, they say, for implementation of competition law to take into account the specific characteristics of the agricultural sector and allow producer and inter-professional organisations to fully play their role. Finally, both countries trust that the meeting to be held in Rome on 16 October at the invitation of the FAO director general and on the occasion of the committee on world food security will allow progress to be made in the fight against price volatility of agricultural raw materials and against the adverse impact that this has on the poorest countries and on agricultural sectors. (LC/transl.jl)