“The current common agricultural policy is taking us down a dead-end and must be reformed”, commented MEP Eric Andrieu (S&D, France) on Thursday 29 September after the European Parliament’s agriculture committee adopted his report, “How can the CAP improve job creation in rural areas?”, by 32 votes to 7.
The text will be put to the vote in the European Parliament during the plenary session in Strasbourg, 24-27 October.
The report received the backing of all the political groups, apart from the Liberals and a section of the Conservatives, who were unhappy at the priority it gave to family farms. The report says the common agricultural policy (CAP) “should focus, through direct support, on small and medium-sized farms” (79% of all farms in Europe). It states that, in order to stimulate employment in rural areas, the EU must simplify the CAP, make environmental requirements easier to put into effect and, in future, provide the policy with a sufficient level of funding, at least as much as at present.
The committee underlines that, against a background of a crisis in prices, the EU must put in place: safety nets, prevention and crisis management systems to strike balance between supply and demand, innovative risk management tools with farmers’ financial involvement, stronger insurance schemes against inter-alia economic risks, and more money to finance market-stabilisation measures. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)