On Tuesday 23 January, MEPs of the European Parliament committee on agriculture held a first debate on the own initiative report that they are to prepare on the European Commission’s communication regarding the “future of food and farming” (see EUROPE 11915).
The rapporteur will be Herbert Dorfmann (EPP, Italy). He is expected to finalise his draft report mid-February. An external study on the communication has also been launched by the European Parliament’s services and will be presented on 16 May.
Time, however, is pressing. The European Commission is to present its formal legislative proposals on the future CAP in early June, in the wake of its proposals for the multiannual financial framework post-2020. MEPs would therefore like their report to be adopted in plenary before then (or at the latest during the June session) in order to influence the Commission’s proposals. The only thing is, the latter should already begin circulating within Commission services from April on.
Herbert Dorfmann explained to his colleagues: “This is not a regulatory text but a policy paper. Our work will therefore be to see where the current CAP has functioned and seek to assess in what areas the subsidiarity proposed by the Commission can be of interest and where it is necessary to maintain a common approach at European level”. He went on to say: “The aim of the CAP is to support the European agricultural model by helping family businesses and by maintaining activity in disadvantaged areas”.
Jan Huitema (ALDE, Netherlands) said it was not necessary to focus on the subsidiarity proposed but on what is essential in the Commission’s text, namely: “The system based on results rather than on standards”.
Eric Andrieu (S&D, France), for his part, expressed his fear that the next CAP would be one of “non-reform”. “There is nothing of substance in the Commission communication, notably on economic securing of farm revenue. Nothing but questions of method”, he said with concern.
In addition, on Tuesday 23 January, the agriculture committee adopted (by 32 votes to 3 with 5 abstentions) its opinion on the multiannual financial framework of the EU for the post-2020 period, which must, it states, “increase the CAP budget after 2020 or, at least, maintain it at its current level”. Also, even if the EU should find funds for facing up to the new challenges, such as migration and defence, it must find ways, for example by developing new clean resources, for funding not only its traditional priorities but also its new priorities, the members of the agricultural committee say.
Sofia Ribeiro (EPP, Portugal), who is rapporteur for this opinion, also underlines the duration of the next budgetary programming which “must be as long as possible (at least seven years) in order to guarantee predictability and stability for CAP funding”. She invites the European Commission to “leave direct payments intact, given that they allow competition distortion between member states to be avoided”, to “maintain them without any national co-funding”, and to “continue with the process of convergence” of these payments between member states. The opinion will be forwarded to the parliamentary committee on budgets that is to adopt its position on the multiannual financial framework during is meeting on 21 and 22 February (see EUROPE 11944). (Original version in French)