In Brussels on 12 October, negotiators from the Council of the EU, the European Parliament and the European Commission reached agreement on the agricultural arm of the ‘omnibus’ regulation simplifying the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and strengthening risk management tools and producer organisations (see EUROPE 11864).
The three most problematic points still hanging were the rules for producer organisations, insurance and simplifying the greening of direct payments. The European Parliament wanted to take advantage of the talks to carry out a mini reform of the CAP and welcomed the final agreement. Paolo de Castro (S&D, Italy), head of negotiations in Parliament, said most of Parliament’s ideas about simplification, risk management and market measures are not included in the final text. Brussels think-tank Farm Europe says it is a genuine mid-term review of the economic arm of the CAP.
Member states’ experts will be called upon to endorse the agreement at their meeting on 16 October.
Insurance
Noting that the insurance regime set up in the previous reform of the CAP in 2013 was not used very much by farmers, the European Commission proposed that the trigger point for use of the tool should go from a loss of 30% to a loss of 20% at sectoral level (in other words, including one aspect of the farm, dairy for example, rather than every part of the farm). But the European Parliament wanted to go further and called for the 20% trigger to be extended to all insurance regimes. This has not happened but the final compromise foresees that for insurance contracts the 20% loss level should also apply. For the income stabilisation tool generally (rather than for the sector) and for pooling funds, the trigger is maintained at 30%. Another change: as suggested by the European Commission, for all insurance measures, compensation is increased to up to 70% rather than the previous 65%.
Producer organisations
The agricultural committee members insisted from the start of the talks that farmers’ negotiating position in the food chain needed to be strengthened, an area that the Commission in Brussels was not planning to address. In the end, the MEPs won an extension of the 2010 dairy package rules to all other areas of farming. All farmers will therefore be entitled to have contracts clarifying prices and volumes and will be able to combine forces to sell their products collectively, deciding on quantities and quality standards in their producer organisations. Measures viewed as highly problematic by the Commission, particularly the directorate general for competition. The European Commission will publish in parallel to the regulation, a statement indicating that it would have preferred a number of safeguards to allow greater surveillance of national authorities. In another statement, the European Parliament will tell the Commission that this will not happen.
The MEPs did not win much when it comes to crisis management and prevention tools at the European Commission. They would have preferred, for example, to see the introduction of a programme to reduce production (as was introduced temporarily during the 2016 dairy crisis) in the event of serious upsets in the market.
Simplification
On the question of implementing legislation, talks examined the greening of direct aid introduced during the 2013 reform of the CAP. Farms smaller than 30 hectares will no longer be required to comply with obligations relating to areas of ecological interest (that have to cover 6% of total farm land), as applies already to crop diversification.
Three plants have been added to the list of crops recognised as being of ecological interest, namely miscanthus, silphie perfoliée and mellifluous plants. The agreement gives the member states greater flexibility when it comes to defining an active farmer (which grants eligibility for farm subsidies).
All the talks on the omnibus regulation, of which the farm aspects are only a small part, are due in theory to be concluded on 25 October at a final trialogue meeting of the institutions.