A few months ahead of the European Commission’s legislative proposals on the EU’s new Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for 2028-2034, the European Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture will shortly be adopting a draft report calling for a strengthening of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) budget.
On Monday 7 April, the Committee will hold its first debate on the draft report by Carmen Crespo Díaz (EPP, Spanish), which sets out the main thrusts of the ‘Vision for Agriculture and Food’ adopted by the European Commission on 19 February: fewer constraints (particularly environmental), administrative simplification, priority to generational renewal (see EUROPE 13606/2).
The rapporteur believes that direct aid under the first pillar should be granted to all professional farmers, regardless of their size and type of production. Specific support should continue to be available for sectors in difficulty or with specific constraints, such as arid, mountainous or outermost areas and sectors such as fruit and vegetables, wine, beekeeping, Mediterranean forests and livestock.
According to Carmen Crespo Díaz, cross compliance requirements should be reassessed to reduce “excessive (...) requirements and unnecessary costs”.
Reciprocity. The rapporteur also takes up the idea of strengthening the reciprocity of standards in trade agreements in order to ensure fair competition between European products and those imported from third countries. She advocates speeding up the authorisation of active substances to protect plant health, and believes that these should not be banned without viable alternatives. She also emphasises access to water, stressing the need to promote storage infrastructures to ensure a secure and balanced supply.
The draft report also calls for the agricultural reserve to be strengthened in the event of a crisis. As far as the second pillar (rural development) is concerned, the MEP stresses the importance of it remaining “independent in its objectives and functioning”, although it may be necessary to coordinate it with other EU policies and funds, in particular cohesion policies, in order to optimise resources and maximise its impact on rural development.
Link to the draft report: https://aeur.eu/f/g9i
The ECR group on the offensive. On 2 April, the European Parliament’s ECR group presented its own ‘vision’ for agriculture and food, calling for “strong, sovereign and competitive” European agriculture, combining tradition and innovation. The ECR group would like to reduce environmental legislation, in particular the texts resulting from the ‘European Green Deal’ which affect the EU’s agricultural sector and food production, including the ‘Nitrates’ and ‘Habitats’ directives.
The European conservatives are opposed to “misleading health labelling targeting products from our traditional diet and the proliferation of laboratory-grown cell meat”.
Link to the ECR group’s agricultural vision: https://aeur.eu/f/g9h (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)