The think tank Momagri says in a press release published on Monday 11 September that it is astonished by the position of the EPP Group in calling for the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) to be postponed.
In view of the questions and uncertainties raised by the United Kingdom’s leaving the EU and the attendant budget negotiations, the Christian Democratic European People’s Party (EPP) has proposed to delay the entry into force of CAP reform until 2015 (see EUROPE 11858). Within this debate, Momagri has advocated replacing part of direct payments with a flexible risk-management mechanism that guarantees farmers a minimum turnover in times of price collapse (see EUROPE 11716 and 11637).
“This will to keep the status quo is baffling, especially in regards to the crisis situations a great number of farmers are experiencing which obviously shows the current CAP framework isn’t suitable”, Momagri argues.
By way of example, it says that European producers are about to receive €130 per tonne for the wheat they have just harvested (to which €30 will be added in decoupled payments), whereas their Chinese and Indian counterparts will receive $360 and $320 per tonne respectively. In the United States, thanks to countercyclical payments, $202 per tonne is guaranteed. Russia is strengthening its intervention on cereal markets with the announcement of a public buying price of $181 for milling wheat. The European Union, Momagri states, “is going the wrong way!” Momagri wants to see a policy that ensures better stability of income for farmers and states that “the Doha cycle is in clinical death”. It goes as far as to say that, with this standpoint, conservative MEPS “are feeding into the disenchantment regarding the European project”.
The EPP has nonetheless brought forward ideas on the future of the CAP, such as putting in place a crisis fund that would strengthen the negotiating power of producer organisations in the food supply chain. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)