At the meeting of the Commission for Natural Resources (NAT) of the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) on Friday 22 March, regional and local leaders asked the European Commissioner for Agriculture, Janusz Wojciechowski, to adopt new measures to help EU farmers.
The NAT Commission adopted a draft opinion on the future of the Common Agricultural Policy prepared by Isilda Gomes (PES, Portuguese) and Piotr Całbecki (EPP, Polish).
The European Commissioner for Agriculture, representatives of CEJA (young farmers), Food Drink Europe andEuroCommerce, as well as the NAT Commission, have identified the main priorities for the future CAP: - better working conditions and decent incomes for farmers by redistributing direct payments to small and medium-sized farms, capping payments to large farms and replacing aid per hectare with subsidies based on the labour intensity of farms; - support for young farmers by improving access to land and credit; - promoting greater adaptability to climate change; - the revision of the Unfair Trading Practices Directive (UTP); - simplification of the administrative burden.
After the debate, the members of the NAT Commission voted on the 184 amendments submitted and the opinion was adopted by a majority. It will be adopted by the CoR on 19 June. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)