Brussels, 25/01/2013 (Agence Europe) - European Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Ciolos welcomed, on Thursday 24 January, the vote by members of the European Parliament agriculture committee (see EUROPE 10771) on reports relating to common agriculture policy (CAP) reform. The commissioner said: “I am pleased to see that this vote confirms the concepts tabled by the European Commission. It demonstrates that the proposals submitted on 12 October 2011 are well-balanced on many issues, including a fairer distribution of direct support, capping, active farmers, greening 30% of the first pillar, more support for young farmers, and a more effective rural development policy, more targeted towards innovation and strengthening farmers' organisation”. He is opposed, however, to “double funding” and to the exemptions that create “green-washing”, adding: “On this basis, I will now analyse in detail the elements of improvement proposed by the EP agriculture committee”.
The final phase of the negotiation process on the legislative proposals of the future CAP will start after the overall agreement on the multiannual financial framework (MFF) 2014-2020. “Afterwards”, he explained, “the European Parliament and the Council will be in a position to adopt their respective negotiating mandates, paving the way for trilogues between the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission”.
The Committee of the Regions (CoR) gives a mixed response to the voting results. The CoR welcomes the progress made on sharing out direct payments more equitably by stepping up aid to small farmers. It also welcomes support being restricted to active farmers and expedited convergence between member states. It welcomes the flexibility allowing states to take responsibility for internal convergence, which will allow regions to take specific local and regional features more into account. However, while praising the establishment of aid capping at €300,000, the CoR deplores the fact that thresholds currently proposed by the agriculture committee are too high to allow real redistribution and limit speculative irregularities in a number of member states. For this reason, the CoR recommends capping at €200,000. It welcomes the possibility of transferring up to 15% of funding from the first pillar (direct payments) to the second pillar (rural development). The CoR takes the view that, given the huge needs of rural areas that are losing speed compared to urban areas, “the European Union must have a real rural development strategy with the appropriate means” (our translation).
COPA-COGECA has said that the measures voted on were “going in the right direction” and were an “improvement on the EU Commission's proposal, but they do not go far enough”. Pekka Pesonen, COPA-COGECA Secretary General, welcomed the vote by MEPs in favour of regulating the EU wine production potential, as well as the increased flexibility concerning measures to further green the CAP. Compromise amendments, moreover, offer some flexibility on crop diversification and permanent pasture, he said. “But we have serious concerns that the EU will be the only state that will be cutting back on its agricultural potential at a time when there are major worries about food security”, Pesonen went on to say, adding that some elements of the vote “run counter to the objectives of the CAP”, and asserting: “In particular, we oppose any transfers of funds from the first to the second pillar of the CAP which has been proposed by MEPs”. The European Parliament's final vote on the legislative resolution has meanwhile been delayed until there is a decision on the future EU budget. “We urge the EU institutions to make a speedy and positive decision on the new CAP and EU budget 2014-2020 to enable the new CAP to be implemented in time. (…)Agricultural spending, which is less than 1% of public expenditure, must be kept at current levels until 2020 to ensure that we have a viable sector”, Pesonen said.
The European Coordination Via Campesina (ECVC), which represents small and medium farmers using environmentally-friendly production methods, is concerned about the state of discussions on the future CAP. “The predictable decrease of the CAP budget stirs the representatives of the 'big agriculture' linked to the interests of the agro-industry”, it states. For ECVC, what is at stake is not so much keeping the overall budget for agricultural policy but rather restoring CAP meaning and legitimacy. “Giving more funding to the first 50 hectares is going in the right direction”, said ECVC board member Geneviève Savigny, “providing that the amounts allocated are much more capped than proposed, a topic too much forgotten in the discussions, and to link them to jobs rather than to hectares, as is currently the case”. Greening must be preserved, ECVC states, while taking into account very specific regional situations, using common sense, and in order to restore a balance between nature conservation and production. It calls for rural development to be consolidated, and oriented towards the creation of jobs. “It is then a scandal to fund insurances through the second pillar. The support to less-favoured areas needs to be strengthened”, ECVC states. Furthermore, the organisation considers that the new policy must move towards food sovereignty. To do that, it will be necessary to “implement market regulation mechanisms to maintain stable and fair prices for producers as for consumers”. (LC/transl.jl)