Because of the uncertainty arising from the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU and the attendant budget debates, the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) proposed on Monday 4 September to delay the entry into force of the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) until 2025.
In summary, in proposes maintaining the structure of the current policy, substantially revising the rules on the greening of direct aid and setting up a crisis fund that would strengthen the negotiation power of producer organisation within the food supply chain.
At a meeting in Copenhagen, the Political Assembly of the European People’s Party (EPP) unanimously adopted its position on the forthcoming reform of the CAP. It believes that the current policy should continue until 2024. This, it argues, would separate the reform from the discussions on the financing of the EU after 2020 and would allow time to assess the impact of Brexit and the results of the CAP that was reformed in 2013.
Following an 18-month study and report by a working group chaired by French MEP Michel Dantin and German Agriculture Minister Christian Schmidt, the Centre-Right group, the largest in the European Parliament with 241 of the 746 seats, lays stress on “fair direct payments as an essential element of farm income” and risk- and market-management tools.
No to repatriation. While arguing for more subsidiarity, the EPP opposes all repatriation of the CAP and, therefore, national co-financing of the first pillar. It says that the CAP budget must be “kept at sufficient levels” and must not be cut to finance the new challenges facing the EU, such as security and defence.
On risk management, the EPP suggests easier access to private insurance (climate insurance, for example), mutual funds and income stabilisation tools. “The choice to mobilise such tools should remain voluntary at member state and farmer level” so that the specific nature of the ground can be taken into account.
The EPP suggests replacing the current crisis reserve (€440 million) which has never been used by an independent financial instrument not subject to the EU’s yearly budgeting. This fund would allow money to be transferred from one year to another.
To improve the way the food supply chain works, the EPP proposes improving the power of producer organisations in negotiations with processors and retailers by means of derogations to competition rules in order to achieve a fairer distribution of added value.
For the EPP, the two-pillar structure (direct aid and market management, and rural development) “remains an important feature of the CAP”.
It emphasises the support to be given to investment strategies, research and innovation and access to finance. It states that financial instruments, the Horizon 2020 research programme and the European fund for strategic investments (EFSI) should be accessible to all farms. On innovation, it warns that “possible exclusion of some of the existing plant protection products from the market without proposing new and better ones, that are more environmentally friendly, is detrimental to farmers”.
It took eight meetings and hearings with twenty-five experts for the ad hoc group, made up largely of MEPs, to draft the EPP position on the future of the CAP. Two issues were particularly closely debated: whether greening should be implemented through the 1st or the 2nd pillar (the second option was called for by a section of the German representatives) and national co-financing of the 1st pillar. The text may be found at http://www.epp.eu/files/uploads/2017/09/CAP_FV-1.pdf (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)