Brussels, 20/03/2002 (Agence Europe) - The Spanish Presidency will launch the debate on the future of rural development policy at the informal Agriculture Council in Murcia on 27/30 April. Member States are expected to express themselves on the issues of co-funding, whether the principle of adjusting direct aid (to transfer money to rural development) should be made compulsory and the need to simplify legislation in this area even more. The outcome of he debate should help the European Commission to learn the views and consider the suggestions of the different parties before adopting proposals for the mid-term review of the CAP.
To structure the debate, the Presidency proved the Member States with a document on rural development and European agriculture made up of a ten-point questionnaire and a summary of the different stages through which the policy has passed. The document points out that the Stresa Conference in July 1958, that set out the foundations of the CAP (referred to in the Treaty of Rome), stressed the need for a clear correlation between structural adjustment policy and market policy. When the EAGGF was set up (it came fully into force in 1964), the original idea was to divide agricultural funds up into the Guarantee section (market policy) and Guidance (structural adjustment) in the ratio 2/3 to 1/3, but in practice over the years the ratio of Community spending was more like 95% to 5%. Austria and Finland are the two countries that have always spent the most under the Fund on rural development (40% of European agricultural funding on average). At the other extreme, Belgium, Denmark, the UK and the Netherlands spend the least on rural development.
The Spanish Presidency wants the Member States' views on - priorities in rural development policies (adapting farms, compensating for natural handicaps, food safety and security policies, sustainable development, preserving the environment and maintaining landscapes, generating alternative revenue sources); - balancing the principle of subsidiarity with common objectives (allocation compensation or agri-environmental measures); - the effects of national co-funding (particularly for countries with budget problems and future Member States); - effectiveness of uniform application of eco-conditions and the compulsory adjustment of direct aid to finance the Rural Development Fund; - the option of separating aid off from production in the form of 'support for multifunctionality' based on the farm unit and jobs created; - impact on revenues of different categories of farmers if large sums are transferred from the first pillar (market measures and direct aid) to the second pillar; - overall breakdown of funds between 1st and 2nd pillar; - uniform application of direct aid adjustment or use according to cohesion criteria (smallfarmers, most disadvantaged areas, etc) to make greater deductions for funding rural development from categories of farmers who have a reference revenue of above the Community average; - application of obligatory adjustment at Community level to solve rural development co-funding problems by reducing the proportion provided by Member States; - merging the two sections of EAGGF into a "clear solution, guided by cohesion criteria" to solve the problem of financial solidarity within the CAP.