Brussels, 27/06/2013 (Agence Europe) - A threat for the environment, a disaster. The political agreement reached in trialogue on Tuesday on reform of the common agricultural policy (CAP) for 2014-2020 is, to say the very least, a disappointment for the environmental NGOs, which are convinced the reform proposed in 2011 by the European Commission to ensure a fairer, greener, more effective and more transparent CAP will fail to achieve its aim (see EUROPE 10875).
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) believes the agreement, which has still to be officially approved by the Council and Parliament, is counter-productive as it will undermine best farming practice and work towards continued decline in the quality of the environment in rural areas. While the initial aim of the reform was to support environmentally-friendly farming practices and reverse the deterioration of the environment in rural areas, the European taxpayer is being asked to support a subsidy system to farmers with only limited environmental conditionality, the NGO states indignantly.
“For years we have seen the acute problems of soil erosion, water scarcity and pollution as well as a decline in biodiversity. This deal will continue this decline in nature and in many instances it will be irreversible. Agriculture ministers have a lot to be responsible for. At every turn they have sought to water down the environmental credentials of the final common agricultural policy deal and have stonewalled any of the limited drives by the European Commission and Parliament to make improvements. The European Parliament has proven that it is not ready to handle its new full co-decision powers on the common agricultural policy”, commented Tony Long, WWF European Director European Policy.
WWF is especially alarmed at the fact that rural development funding has been marginalised. While existing rules (2007-2013) allocate at least 25% of rural development funding to environmental measures, the new agreement provides for the largest part of the funding (a minimum of 30%) being used for increased support to measures with little or no added value. Farmers who do not comply with the already weak greening measures for CAP will lose at most 37.5% of their direct payments and this only after several years of non-compliance. Also, instead of increasing the percentage of ecological focus areas from 7% to 10%, negotiators have chosen to decrease the proposed percentage to 5% and to allow intensive production on those areas, which goes against the original objective of the measure, WWF denounces.
WWF goes on to speak ill of the failure of negotiators to protect all environmentally rich grasslands, wetlands and carbon rich soils, which can store between 50-100 million tonnes of carbon annually. (AN/transl.jl)