On Thursday 6 September, the European Coordination Via Campesina said that, if adopted, the proposals of the European Commission could cause “fragmentation” of Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
Via Campesina let MEPs know of its stance on the CAP post-2020 proposals, in which it underlines that such a degree of fragmentation and subsidiarity in countries will “create greater gaps between the farmers of the European Union, between production conditions, and labour conditions” and will bring distortion within the single market (see EUROPE 11702).
For this association, which fears CAP will be renationalised, it is inadmissible to put the largest budgetary reduction on the second pillar (rural development) and to reduce European co-funding.
Crisis management. In addition, Via Campesina takes the view that the crises affecting markets cannot be addressed with direct aid and insurances. In order to face crises, it is necessary to have “public regulation, production control and market stabilisation policies”. Via Campesina is against public funding of agricultural insurances in the event of market crisis “as they presuppose privatisation of CAP aid, a loss of farmers’ income and because they do not provide a solution for addressing crises”.
Measures recommended by this organisation include: specific support measures for small farms (which provide jobs and added value), the inclusion of social conditionality, the capping of direct aid at €60,000 per farm or the maintaining of 'coupled' aid (with limits in terms of surface area and livestock unit per active farmer and per farm). Finally, the opening of support for agri-fuels via coupled payments is an aberration, Via Campesina states. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)