To help farmers to cope with price volatility, the EU should develop new risk and crisis management tools, the European Parliament agriculture committee argued on Tuesday 8 November.
MEPs voted by 29 to 11, with 3 abstentions, to adopt the own initiative report by Angélique Delahaye (EPP, France) on common agricultural policy (CAP) tools to reduce price volatility on agricultural markets. Nine compromise amendments covering most of the substance of the report were approved by the committee along with eight other amendments (out of the close to 400 put down).
Delahaye told EUROPE that she had agreed to add a section on crisis management to her report even though it had been her initial intention to deal only with the issue of price volatility (and thus risk management).
Existing risk management tools, such as mutual funds, income stabilisation and insurance, are implemented slowly, unevenly and are poorly funded, MEPs complain. They call, therefore, for new climate, health and economic risk management tools that are fairer, more efficient and responsive, but also affordable for farmers and properly funded.
Call for study on countercyclical aid.
A compromise amendment approved by the committee calls on the European Commission to carry out a study on countercyclical aid and on the ability of the EU to put such aid in place as crisis management measures, Delahaye said. She is not against this type of aid but suggests that what works in America cannot necessarily be transposed successfully to Europe. MEPs also insist that the crisis reserve should be kept outside the EU budget, to make it more flexible.
MEPs also call for: - farmers’ negotiating power on the food supply chain to be strengthened through the introduction of standard, transparent, balanced and collectively negotiated contracts laying down, inter alia, prices for products and payment periods; - information to be provided in real-time on the availability of agricultural products; - EU agricultural price observatories to be set up covering the entire food supply chain.
Under the timetable as it stands at this stage, the text will be debated and put to the vote at the Parliament plenary session in Strasbourg on 12-15 December.
Rethinking the CAP. Delahaye hopes that her report will be the touchstone for debate on the CAP after 2020. She does not rule out a new pillar being created to take account of the effects of price volatility. Many risks are not linked to the CAP, she noted. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)