On Tuesday 6 January, the European Commission proposed to increase the funding available for agriculture under the EU’s next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for the period 2028-2034 in order to convince France and Italy in particular to support the trade agreement with Mercosur.
France and Italy are among the Member States most opposed to a cut in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) budget in the next MFF.
The President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, sent a letter to the Cyprus Presidency of the EU Council and to the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, proposing to redeploy funds that were not immediately available in the initial budget proposal for 2028-2034.
The Commission suggests that two thirds - around €45 billion - of the amounts set aside until the mid-term review of the seven-year budget (2028-2030) could be mobilised starting in 2028 to support farmers. Member States could request this when submitting their National and Regional Partnership Plans.
The Commission had already proposed that farmers should receive €293.7 billion for the CAP over seven years.
The letter also reiterates proposals already presented, including the creation of a €6.3 billion reserve to deal with market disruptions, and provides for increased financial support for rural areas, up to at least 10% of the resources of each National and Regional Partnership Plan. “The rural target will amount to €48.7 billion for rural areas, which might increase up to €63.7 billion through the possibility offered by Catalyst Europe loans”, according to the letter from the President of the Commission.
“The combination of these policy and budgetary tools will provide the farmers and rural communities with an unprecedented level of support, in some respects even higher than in the current budget cycle”, writes Ursula von der Leyen.
Securing Giorgia Meloni’s support. The European agriculture ministers will be holding an extraordinary meeting on Wednesday 7 January, organised by the European Commission, which will focus in particular on reciprocity in trade agreements for farmers, as well as the future CAP budget.
The proposals for additional funding for agriculture should make it possible to respond to the guarantees requested by the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, to support the EU/Mercosur agreement.
This Italian support is necessary to reach the qualified majority of Member States (at least 15 Member States in favour, representing 65% of the EU population), given that at this stage France, Poland and Hungary are opposed to the agreement.
In this way, the Commission hopes to avoid a blocking minority, as a vote by the ambassadors of the EU27 (Coreper) is scheduled for Friday 9 January. Their green light would enable the President of the European Commission to travel next week to Paraguay - the country holding the rotating presidency of Mercosur - to sign the agreement.
When contacted, the spokespersons for the Permanent Representations of Italy, France and Poland to the EU declined to comment on the Commission’s proposal of a budget increase, indicating that their respective agriculture ministers would make their views known at the end of the extraordinary meeting organised in the Commission’s Berlaymont building.
“This is a disappointing proposal”, said MEP Éric Sargiacomo (S&D, French). He was expecting better to “counter the renationalisation of the CAP and the reduction in its budget”. In his view, it is essential to “preserve the specific envelopes for certain sectors”, such as fruit and vegetables, or for the outermost regions. The Commission wants to make the budget more flexible, but at the same time, “does not propose any flexible tools to allow subsidies to be paid to farmers differently from one year to the next to take account of variations in prices or yields. It’s a paradox that Parliament will have to rectify”, he deplored.
For the think tank Farm Europe, the €45 billion provision represents an advantage for the CAP within the partnership plans, “especially if inflation in the EU for the next budgetary period remains below 2%, in which case it will be a real bonus”.
Concerning the 48.7 billion for rural areas, “the explicit opening up to agricultural measures of the rural development type is a concrete step forward, because initially these were rural measures explicitly excluding agricultural measures”, notes Farm Europe.
Link to Ms von der Leyen’s letter: https://aeur.eu/f/k6e (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur and Pauline Denys)