Brussels, 24/01/2013 (Agence Europe) - The reformed common agricultural policy (CAP) should distribute direct aid more fairly, make ecological measures obligatory but flexible, and better help farmers to meet the challenges of the market. That is the position taken by the agriculture committee at the European Parliament after voting on Wednesday 23 and Thursday 24 January. The negotiating position of the agriculture committee has to receive the approval of the whole Parliament in March, before MEPs can start negotiations with the Council of Ministers. A political agreement on the CAP is expected in June. This is the first CAP reform on which the Parliament is a co-legislator with the Council.
“The agriculture committee has said today how the new CAP should look. It should be more efficient, greener and able to respond to the enormous challenges ahead of us. Such ambitious goals entail higher costs. So any further cuts to the CAP budget are simply inacceptable”, said committee chair Paolo De Castro (S&D, Italy). He also called on EU leaders to quickly find an agreement on the EU's long-term budget, which is “essential for setting the final shape of the future CAP”.
Fairer funding. To ensure that direct payments are only allocated to active farmers, the agriculture committee included a list of entities, such as airports or sports clubs, which should automatically be excluded from European funding unless they prove that farming contributes a substantial share to their income. Member states will be able to extend or adapt this list.
External convergence. With regard to external convergence (redistributing the aid between the countries of the EU), the MEPs consider that differences between member states on direct payments to farmers should be reduced slightly faster than the European Commission proposed. Under the new rules, no member state should receive less than 65% of the EU average. “The committee has voted for a stronger redistribution of aid among member states, as it is difficult to accept differences of roughly €300 per hectare between farmers in different member states”, said Luis Manuel Capoulas Santos (S&D, Portugal), rapporteur for the direct payments and rural development regulations.
Internal convergence. With regard to internal convergence (rebalancing aid between farmers from the same country) by 2019, the MEPs softened the Commission's provision. They therefore opted for a less abrupt convergence: 20% the first year as opposed to 40% in the initial proposal. However, to avoid sudden sharp falls in support that could jeopardise the viability of many farms, the member states should still be allowed to deviate from the average by up to 20%, the MEPs add.
Double payment. The MEPs approved the system of double payment - the same action being funded by greening (first pillar) and by an agro-environmental measure (second pillar). The Commission remains firmly opposed to this windfall effect, as do the Parliament's S&D and ALDE Groups in particular.
Capping direct payments. The MEPs supported the Commission's proposal to cap direct payments to any one farm at €300,000. The payment would be reduced by 70% for farms receiving €250,000 to €300,000, by 40% for those receiving between €200,000 and €250,000, and by 20% for the tranche composed of €150,000 to €200,000. Amendments seeking to reduce payments to bigger farms or, on the contrary, calling for the capping to be completely rejected, failed to win the support of a majority of MEPs in the agriculture committee. Nevertheless, the MEPs adapted the rule proposed by the Commission so as to exclude cooperatives and other groups of farmers who distribute payments received to their members and ensure that capped money remains in the region concerned and is used for rural development programmes.
More flexible greening. The MEPs validated the conditionality of 30% direct aid to farmers for the respect of three environmental practices: crop diversification, maintaining permanent pastures, and creating ecologically focused areas. With regard to crop diversification, they also decided to exempt farms of less than 10 hectares (ha) of arable land from the obligation of diversification. The Commission agrees with the principle but had proposed 3 ha in its initial proposal. Farms between 10 and 30 ha should benefit from more flexible rules. With regard to of areas of ecological interest, the agriculture committee eased the obligation by reducing them to 1% of surfaces the first year, 3% the second year and possibly 7% the following years. The Commission is proposing 7% from 2014.
The MEPs also broadened the field of equivalence for certification. Farms having received national or regional environmental certification, and which consequently already use environmentally friendly practices, would be exempt from greening measures on condition that the greening measures they apply have an impact that is at least equivalent to the of the rules imposed.
Risk management. Risk management tools should be funded from the budget for rural development programmes, not from the direct payments budget as is the case today, said MEPs, agreeing with the Commission's proposal. The income stabilisation tool should take the form of financial contributions to mutual funds or insurance against the risk of a severe drop in income. The agriculture committee also calls on the Commission to do a mid-term review of the risk management tools and table a legislative proposal, if needed.
Markets and producer organisations. The proposals of rapporteur Michel Dantin (EPP, France) were all adopted: - prolonging sugar production quotas until 30 September 2020, prolonging wine-growing plantation rights until 2030, the possibility of exemption for producer organisations from competition rules for a short time in sectors in crisis; - arrangements to strengthen the powers of producer organisations (collective negotiation). On this last point, farmers' organisations should be able to use crisis-prevention and crisis-management instruments, including - as a last resort - withdrawal from the market. Moreover, farmers' organisations have the right to negotiate input and delivery contracts on behalf of their members, without infringing competition law.
The Greens voted against. On behalf of the Greens/EFA Group, José Bové from France said: “We wanted a reform of the CAP, but we have the preservation of benefits that were already in the bag”. The key measure of crop rotation proposed by the Greens was brushed aside. “But it was the only means of breaking with industrial agriculture, of reducing the use of pesticides and of stopping soil degradation. It would have enabled soya imports from America to be reduced and all the agricultural trade on the planet to be rebalanced”, he said. In Bové's opinion, the greening measures that were retained will not have any real or beneficial impact on the environment. “What is more, the member states will be able to choose the least binding measures. The pesticide and synthetic fertiliser industry can pop a bottle of champagne”, he said (our translation throughout). Bové also pointed out that the rural development envelope will be reduced drastically and he regrets the capping at €300,000 of the aid of big farms. The Greens/EFA Group argued for a capping at €100,000 (which would only have affected 30,000 farms in Europe) in order to save €7 billion that could then have been used to support small-scale, family farming, and to develop and strengthen other European policies like youth training, aid for the poor and the fight against global warming.
Votes. The draft mandate for negotiations with member states on the future direct payments rules was approved by 31 votes to 12 with 1 abstention (Manuel Capoulas Santos' report). The draft mandate for negotiations with member states on the future rural development rules was approved by 34 votes to 10 (Manuel Capoulas Santos' report). The draft mandate for negotiations with member states on future common market organisation was approved by 26 votes to 14 with 4 abstentions (Michel Dantin's report). (LC/transl.fl)