On Thursday 29 January, the European Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture began debating proposals for the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
Herbert Dorfmann (EPP, Italian), speaking on behalf of rapporteur Norbert Lins, said that the situation with regard to financial resources was somewhat complicated. “These envelopes must really be allocated to agriculture and maintained within the budget”. He also referred to the discussions in the EU Council on the transfer of provisions contained in the regulation on ‘national and regional partnership plans’ to the texts relating to the CAP (see other news).
According to Mr Dorfmann, one of the central issues in CAP reform concerns the way in which basic income support will be distributed and, above all, the beneficiaries of these funds. For him, It is of course essential that the people who need it most should be able to access it, but these criteria also need to be clearly defined in the legislation. Small farmers need support. Retired farmers, “I imagine, are no longer necessarily considered to be in need, although this issue may also be debated”, added Herbert Dorfmann. Discussions will undoubtedly take place on the degressivity (reduction) and capping of aid, as was the case during previous reforms, “even if I consider that capping, above a certain amount, is necessary and entirely appropriate”. (see EUROPE 13753/3).
Éric Sargiacomo (S&D, French) spoke on behalf of Dario Nardella about the new agri-environmental and climate actions. The Commission is proposing to merge eco-regimes (first pillar) and agri-environmental and climate measures (second pillar). These actions would require national co-financing, unlike the current eco-regimes. Furthermore, there are no plans at this stage to require Member States to allocate a minimum share of CAP expenditure to environmental and climate actions. Eric Sargiacomo asked how the Commission intends to ensure that Member States allocate sufficient resources to agri-environmental and climate actions. Furthermore, in his view, the introduction of compulsory national co-financing for agri-environmental and climate actions could undermine the objective of encouraging greater participation by farmers in sustainability-oriented practices.
Reform of the CMO. The rapporteur on the Common Market Organisation (CMO), Éric Sargiacomo, stressed that the objective of stabilising agricultural markets “is a matter of economic security”. He also said that the issue of agricultural stocks “can no longer be the taboo it has been for the past 30 years”.
In his view, the school programme should become one of the key programmes in the ‘national and regional partnership plans’. In addition, Éric Sargiacomo recommended measures to enable certain Member States to catch up in terms of economic organisation, particularly in the livestock sectors.
As far as meat designations are concerned, the debate is still ongoing between the co-legislators. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)