Brussels, 18/03/2013 (Agence Europe) - The agriculture ministers of the countries of the EU will have quite a fight on their hands if they are to agree on a general approach on the reform of the common agriculture policy (CAP) this Tuesday 19 March. The initial compromise of the Presidency of the EU Council of Ministers went down well with the Council on the whole, although some tweaking will be needed, particularly on the greening of direct aid and coupled aid. Moreover, the new countries are calling for their simplified regime of aid to farmers to be kept in place until 2020.
The trilateral meetings (Presidency, member state, Commission) started at around 2.00pm on Monday and were expected to continue until at least 10.00pm. After an initial discussion on his compromise texts, Irish Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney asked the delegations to cut the number of requests they made during these trilateral meetings to three. “You are not going to get everything you want”, he warned his EU counterparts, stressing that they had to prevent the process from derailing. “Please concentrate on the future compromises, it will help us to put together a text for tomorrow, a text which everyone is happy with, even though it won't be considered perfect by everybody”. “We have made good progress on internal convergence and greening”, the Italian delegation noted.
Stephane Le Foll, the French minister, said that “we are no longer very far from reaching a compromise”. His German colleague, Ilse Aigner, said that she was confident (“I think that we will reach an agreement”, she said). The British delegation is calling for changes to be made to the texts with a view to reaching an agreement. The Netherlands noted “good compromise proposals on many points”.
Direct payments. On direct support, the draft on the table is acceptable to France, which takes the view that there is “no reason to refuse Poland” the possibility of continuing the SAPS system (single area payment scheme). Poland and the nine other new countries which use the system are calling to be allowed to continue to apply the regime until 2020, whereas the Presidency's compromise looks at extending it until 2017. On internal convergence (rebalancing aid between farmers of a single country), Germany asked to apply the same system as for external convergence (rebalancing aid between the different countries): 75% of average payments per hectare. We need to be “ambitious” on internal convergence in order to move towards total convergence in 2020, said the British delegation. The transition to targeted payments should be in place by 2020, the Netherlands argued.
The more progressive convergence model proposed by the Presidency “appears to us to be a reasonable and coherent way”, said Spain's Miguel Arias Canete. He does not agree on this point with the Commission, which sees this proposal on internal convergence as less ambitious than that approved by the European Council for external convergence.
The Presidency's proposed compromise allows the member states to bring in partial convergence rather than total convergence by 2019, to bring the initial stage of convergence to 10% of the national or regional limit, to use other convergence options and apply convergence to payment linked to the green component.
Greening. “Greening needs to be simple, but still to make sense”, said Le Foll, who believes that major progress has been made “bringing us closer to an acceptable compromise”. However, he argued, a number of points need to be discussed, particularly the question of surface area of ecological interest (weighting and equivalence grid, application and control details). Germany congratulated the Presidency on its efforts on areas of ecological interest (gradual application as called for by the EP, starting with 3% the first year, then 5% and 7%), but stated its preference for a single rate, otherwise the system would be too complex. On the list of surface areas of ecological interest, Germany called for only productive surface area to be recognised as such. The United Kingdom called for “the flexibility needed to have a greening which suits us”, rather than having to apply the Commission's three measures (diversification of crops, surface areas of ecological interest and permanent pastures). The Netherlands spoke in favour of an ambitious greening and ambitious equivalence measures. “Without this, a compromise will be impossible”, said the Dutch minister.
The United Kingdom opposes the prospect of double funding for the same activities under the two pillars of the CAP. Spain opposes the addition of two measures to the permanent pastures.
Coupled aid. The livestock sector is a priority for France, which is calling for resources to support it, particularly by means of coupled aid (aid which keeps in place a link between sums of money and levels produced). “A coupling of aid at the level of 15%” has been called for by France, Spain, Poland, Cyprus, Italy (“more than 10%”) amongst others. Spain would like coupled aid to be kept in place for tobacco and cotton. Germany, on the other hand, called for coupled aid to be removed. “I do not want any new coupled payments”, said the Dutch minister. The coupled payments system should be applied to all products if the country feels that this is necessary, said Italy.
Wine, sugar and other sectors. The proposed text on planting rights resolves a great many of the sector's concerns, but is “a step backwards” from the previous version on the non-automatic nature of allocations (of rights), said the French minister, Stephane Le Foll. France and other countries (such as Spain and Belgium) have called for sugar production quotas to be extended until 2020. The Presidency has proposed an extension until the growing season 2017/2018 and provisions on conditions for a possible reallocation of quotas. France and Germany (and the Commission) have criticised the free redistribution of sugar quotas as suggested by the Irish Presidency.
Germany is opposed to a situation in which hops producers are at a disadvantage compared to producer organisations in the olive oil sectors. The country has called for no changes to the milk package and has criticised the general system of export refunds.
The United Kingdom has called for an end to sugar quotas whilst allowing cane sugar refiners access to the market. As regards market management measures, it has called for the safety net not be exceeded. Reference prices should remain at their current level, the UK argues. Spain, on the other hand, has called for the reference prices to be updated. Portugal, Finland and Spain stressed the need to extend the milk quota system.
Italy, which is opposed to the extension of sugar quotas, has called for an obligatory labelling of the origin of agricultural products. (LC/transl.fl)