The EU’s post-2020 agricultural policy must be fairer by means, notably, of a capping of aid and its budget must be maintained at the current level to ensure food security.
That is the main message delivered by the European Parliament’s agricultural committee which, in Brussels on Wednesday 16 May, voted by 32 to 5, with 6 abstentions, to approve the report by Herbert Dorfmann (EPP, Italy) analysing the Commission communication of reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) after 2020.
MEPs recognise that EU member states should enjoy more flexibility to adapt the farming policy to their needs but reject any repatriation of the CAP.
The CAP should be adequately financed, which means that the policy’s budget should, at least, be maintained at its current level. The Commission has proposed a 5% reduction in the agricultural budget over the course of the period from 2021 to 2027.
The report also calls for: - the two-pillar structure of the CAP to be maintained, with direct payments, greening and market measures in the first pillar and rural development in the second pillar; - direct payments to continue to be fully financed from the EU budget; - more money for the second pillar to help invigorate rural areas; - new EU method to calculate direct payments by 2030 to phase out historical support criteria and support more those who deliver additional public goods; - more efficient ways to ensure that EU support goes to genuine farmers; - less money for larger farms with a mandatory EU ceiling; - fairer distribution of EU funds among member states, with consideration given to amounts received from both pillars and differences e.g. in production costs or purchasing power; - voluntary coupled support, which member states can grant to their particularly important ailing sectors, to be used also to promote strategically important production, e.g. protein crops, or to compensate for the effects of free trade deals.
The committee wants to maintain (national) young farmer top-ups. Member states should be obliged to offer EU co-funded measures to help new entrants set up, the MEPs say.
They also want to maintain the mandatory greening measures but to make them less bureaucratic.
The new CAP should provide swifter support to farmers hit by income and price volatility, increase market transparency by extending EU milk, meat, sugar and crops market observatories to other sectors, ease their access to risk management and stabilisation tools and better equip them to combat unfair trading practices in the food supply chain, say MEPs. They also want to turn the crisis reserve mechanism into a real independent fund and to maintain existing provisions from the so-called omnibus regulation that allow farmers to collectively negotiate delivery contracts and plan production.
Lastly, MEPs argue that all trade deals should respect EU sanitary, phytosanitary, animal welfare, environmental and societal standards and must not weaken them. They suggest excluding the most sensitive sectors from trade negotiations. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)