In view of the Special Committee on Agriculture (SCA) meeting on Monday 1 March, Austria (supported by the Belgian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Cypriot, Czech, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Latvian, Maltese, Romanian and Slovak delegations) sent a working document criticising the options on social conditionality in the future Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
These 13 Member States stress that this requirement, wanted by the European Parliament and suggested by the Portuguese Presidency of the EU Council, “was neither part of the European Commission proposal nor of the General approach of the EU Council” (see EUROPE 12661/8).
Distortion of competition. The CAP “is not the right legal framework to implement social and workers’ rights or sanction infringements”, according to the note from these countries.
Since European law sets only minimum requirements in the field of social policy, there are significant differences between Member States in the relevant national legislation. “This might result in payment reductions or the suspension of payments based on different levels of social and labour rights and would consequently lead to a distortion of competition”, they argue.
Administrative overburden. Furthermore, these Member States fear that any additional ‘conditionality’ “would enormously increase administrative burden, in particular in the control and sanction system”.
Instead of the ideas of the Portuguese Presidency, these 13 countries are formulating a two-step approach: - strengthening the role of Farm Advisory Services taking into account the guidelines for workers (agriculture, livestock, horticulture and forestry) issued by the European Agency for Occupational Health and Safety; - evaluation of the results after three years of the possible measures.
Link to the note from the 13 countries: https://bit.ly/37LAoAP - and the options of the Portuguese Presidency of the EU Council on social conditionality: http://bit.ly/37qqCns (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)