The European Parliament will examine the package of proposals to simplify the common agricultural policy (CAP) using a simplified procedure, but over 300 amendments have still been tabled by members of the Committee on Agriculture and will be debated on Monday 1 September (see EUROPE 13640/8).
MEPs from the EPP, PfE and ECR groups still want to ease certain provisions. This is particularly the case for organic farming: several amendments aim to allow mixed (partially organic) farms to also benefit from environmental conditionality exemptions. According to the Commission’s initial proposal, only farmers producing organic food should be considered ‘green by definition’ for GAECs 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6 - which is already the case for GAEC 7 (crop rotation).
Another sensitive issue is the definition of permanent grassland (GAEC 1). The Commission is proposing to extend the period before a parcel is classified as such from 5 to 7 years in order to facilitate crop rotations. The Greens/EFA and S&D are opposed to this, arguing that this flexibility could release up to 125 million tonnes of CO2, equivalent to the Czech Republic’s annual emissions.
The chair of Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture, Veronika Vrecionová (ECR, Czech), proposes removing social conditionality from the CAP.
Many elected representatives are also contesting plans to set up a national digital data coordination authority to ensure interoperability and information exchange for implementing, monitoring and evaluating the CAP. This is an idea deemed contrary to the objective of simplification.
Among other proposals, Éric Sargiacomo (S&D, French) suggests allowing Member States to exceed the 13% ceiling for coupled support, by up to 10 additional points, when this aid concerns grassland or protein crops.
Lastly, a number of amendments from the Chamber’s left rejected the deletion of Article 120, which ensures that CAP strategic plans be “updated to reflect” any legislative developments in environmental and climate matters.
As for the Member States, discussions continue: the Danish Presidency of the EU Council is preparing a new compromise proposal (see EUROPE 13648/2). The EU agriculture ministers are contesting the decision to have the General Affairs Council examine the issue of simplifying (‘omnibus’) CAP rules. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)