The European Parliament’s rapporteur on the reform of the Common Market Organisation (CMO), Éric Sargiacomo (S&D, French), set out on Wednesday 10 June, in an interview with Agence Europe, the main lines of his draft report, which seeks to strengthen agricultural market regulation instruments and consolidate producer organisations (POs) in the next Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
The draft report on the CMO will be presented to Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture on 29 June (see EUROPE 13879/8). MEPs will have until 15 July to table amendments. Negotiations in Parliament are expected to continue during the second half of 2026, with the aim of reaching Parliament’s position by the end of 2026. Negotiations with the Council of the EU could begin in the first half of 2027, subject to agreement on the budget.
For Éric Sargiacomo, the central issue remains that of resources: “We can talk about regulation tools, but without the corresponding budgets, things become very complicated”.
While the rapporteur welcomes the doubling of the crisis reserve, which will become the ‘Unity Safety Net’, he questions the model proposed by the European Commission, which relies heavily on the 2028-2034 national and regional partnership plans. He is advocating specific envelopes for the main current programmes such as POSEI, the school food distribution programme, or the funds intended for sectoral interventions in fruit and vegetables and wine-growing. In his view, the current mechanisms create risks of distortion and raise concerns about some Member States’ willingness to implement them.
Operational programmes, particularly in the fruit and vegetables sector, illustrate an effective model, according to Mr Sargiacomo: they account for only around 4% of the CAP budget, for a sector that generates nearly 12% of the value of European agricultural production. “It is a very efficient tool, but it is not sufficiently secure”, he stresses.
Mr Sargiacomo supports strengthening POs, whose fundamental principles he wants to preserve, in particular transfer of ownership and collective structuring.
He proposes extending these arrangements to other agricultural sectors. The sectors concerned include processed fruit, meat, but also the dairy sector, which is facing structural imbalances in the value chain. The objective is to strengthen producers’ negotiating capacity in markets where bargaining powers are considered unbalanced.
On the issue of prices, he rejects the idea of regulation through oversight of contracts on the basis of production costs, considering that this would run counter to competition law. By contrast, he supports strengthening crisis mechanisms and raising public intervention thresholds to a level corresponding to 80% of production costs.
He criticises the EU’s current response times, which are considered too long in times of crisis, as recently illustrated by the rise in fertiliser prices.
Mr Sargiacomo is calling for more responsive, even automatic, mechanisms in order to reduce the lag between crisis and intervention. In his view, the Commission must produce sectoral guidelines.
The draft report strengthens the proposal on strategic stocks. It concerns fertilisers, additives for animal feed and seeds. Food products fit for direct consumption must be included in these national plans to secure food supplies.
The rapporteur welcomes the simplifications proposed for the school programme, but wants to go further. “Introducing a rule on free sugars in fruit is enough to give canteen managers cold sweats, so we will avoid that!” Simplification must allow States to give greater prominence to this beneficial scheme: “One euro for the school programme means one euro of food for a child, and one euro for a farmer from that outlet!”
The CAP must remain faithful to its founding objectives laid down in Article 39 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union: market stabilisation, farmers’ income, and security of food supplies. “Technical work must be underpinned by a political vision that ensures coherence between agriculture and food at European level”, he insists.
The report on the CMO will be presented at the same time as Norbert Lins’s (EPP, German) report on CAP reform.
Éric Sargiacomo says he wants to link these various initiatives in a coherent approach, combining direct aid, market tools, and stronger POs. “The aim is to build a complete ‘toolbox’, suited to crises and current realities, but also to find the right balance between subsidies and market regulation”, he concludes. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)