On Wednesday 12 July, the Committee of the Regions (CoR) adopted its recommendations on the post-2020 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which it believes should be provided with a sufficient budget.
The rapporteur, Guillaume Cros (PES, France), the Vice President of the Regional Occitan Council, highlighted the need to regulate the agricultural markets, not just as a means to prevent sectoral crises but also because this costs much less than having to intervene afterwards. He also called for a fairer distribution of direct payments because 80% of farms only received 20% of direct payments.
The CoR believes the CAP budget must be maintained at a sufficient level. It rejects the idea of co-financing the first pillar of the CAP. This idea was recently mooted by the European Commission in its reflection document on the future finances of the EU (see EUROPE 11818). The CoR argues that this would mean renationalising the CAP, which would have a negative effect on the regions’ budgets and would put the EU’s poorest states at a disadvantage.
On the issue of direct payments linked to surface area, local representatives call for them to be capped and for them to have specific modalities that take into account a farm’s available assets. The main objective is to support small family farms and help nurture young farmers. The CoR also calls for a reduction in direct payment level disparities between farms and between member states.
Another strong recommendation points out that the EU is the world’s biggest importer and exporter of foodstuffs and must therefore be able to make its weight felt at international level so that it can amend current world trade rules on agriculture and guarantee a level playing field in the trade agreements concluded with non-EU countries.
Guillaume Cros warns that, “The environmental question must cease to be a battleground between farmers and environmentalists. The challenges of food safety, public health, biodiversity, water resources, soil fertility and climate change are the same for everyone”.
Local representatives recommend enhancing climate and environmentally friendly measures by way of crop rotation, keeping the ban on work being carried out on permanent grasslands and keeping zones of ecological interest free from crops and the use of phytosanitary products
The CoR calls for more lending to be made available to the second pillar (rural development) in the CAP, as well as greater room for manoeuvre allowed for member states so that they can make transfers from the first to the second pillar. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)