Even heads of government… What conclusions can be drawn from the Fischler plan for reforming the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy) and the waves of reaction it has caused? Last week, I gave over a fair section of my column to this issue, first assessing the ideas and objectives on 18 July, and then the sector-specific measures for improving various markets on 19 July. Readers who were patient enough to read my comments will have noticed that the results of the analysis are mainly positive as far as I am concerned. I think that for Member States, the appropriate attitude to take is not to oppose the plan on principle but to try and make changes to it and negotiate compromise over specific issues. Other ministers (in addition to farm ministers) could be involved in the negotiations, environment and consumer affairs ministers, for example, since the reforms will involve all sections of the population and presupposes a project for the whole of society. Heads of government could also give their opinions. Farming should remain the priority area of the negotiations, but in the "multi-functional" sense that is generally accepted today, without forgetting that the Fischler plan gives farmers entrepreneurial responsibilities and the freedom to chose what type of farming to engage in according to market demand and consumer preference, while guaranteeing them the fair pay to which they are entitled.
Agricultural organisations should not isolate themselves. Agricultural organisations should be wary of radical rejection that could isolate them from the rest of civil society and this is not just a theoretical risk. Fischler's guidelines have been rejected by COPA, COGECA and CPE (peasants' coordination), while environment and consumer organisations consider them as a step in the right direction (see pp 15/16 of 13 July bulletin). Addressing MEPs (who represent the general interest), Franz Fischler stressed the need to reconcile farming policy with society with farmers not simply seeming to be the receivers of charity but able to demand financial compensation with dignity as entrepreneurs focussing on the market and suppliers of services in the environmental and rural domains. It is vital to restore consumer confidence in farming. What are people first concerned about? Mad cows, harmful hormones and fraud. To quote Fischler again: If we don't manage to persuade tax payers that they are getting real value for what they're paying, the CAP's reputation will go even further downhill. It would run the risk of no longer being accepted by public opinion. In Copenhagen on 18 July he continued along the same lines, saying one could no longer ignore the fact that the population was challenging the CAP to an ever greater extent because of a never-ending series of food scandals and the mad cow and foot and mouth crises. Civil society is right to demand an agricultural policy that encourages the production of what citizens want and not what provides the highest subsidies. The situation is no better, he said, on the environmental front. The latest Commission report on water pollution shows that the concentration of nitrates in the water table, rivers and lakes is still going up in areas where farming and fertiliser use are the most intensive. Nitrogen from farms accounts for between 50 and 80% of nitrates polluting EU water (see Europe of 18 July, p.13) and there would not be any pork surplus if the 1991 nitrate directive were complied with.
Community preference is a right. Countries and citizens have to be prepared to pay for what they are demanding from farmers but in return, farmers have to play their part in protecting the environment, balanced land-use and the safeguard of tradition and landscapes. One fundamental aspect of society and the authorities' duties with regard to farmers is not covered in the Fischler plan, namely Community preference (which peasants are entitled to) and suitable protection against wild imports from outside the EU where natural and social conditions are radically different. Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy recently said that if the EU's borders were to be fully opened to competition from outside the result would be six or seven million EU farms going out of business, and he didn't see how the rest of the world would do better (see my 12 July column). I would say that the situation would simply deteriorate in terms of combatting hunger round the world, and for Europe it would mean ecological, social and cultural disaster. I will never tire of hammering home this last point.
(F.R.)