Nyborg, 10/09/2002 (Agence Europe) - On the fringes of the Agriculture Council in Nyborg, France and Spain revealed that they are hoping to convince as many Member States as possible to join them in drafting an article to be published in three weeks' time in most European newspapers on the merits and ideas behind the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and its future form. But the draft article does not appear to have fully won over some countries which have traditionally favoured the continuation of the balance and regulations of the CAP (countries like Belgium and Italy).
Paris and Madrid have sent the draft article to ten Member States (the states which have not been sent the article are Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK), and took advantage of the Agriculture Council to attempt to collectively fine-tune the article. It is in two parts - the first is reportedly less controversial, sweeping aside criticisms and commonplaces regarding the CAP (made by the European Commission and more recently by various countries and NGOs at the Johannesburg Summit); while the second paints the picture of a new version of the CAP but without mentioning the terms and mechanisms currently under fierce discussion as part of the mid-term review of the CAP ("decoupling", "modulation" and gradually cutting aid).
French farming minister Hervé Gaymard said the article was not a blistering attack on the Commission, nor a reaction to Franz Fischler's proposals, but was a doctrinal text on the basic ideas behind the CAP that would answer the caricatures and a kind of "pensée unique" which will brook no dissent and which comes out with ideas along the lines that the CAP was responsible for mad cow disease and world hunger and that it could make the budget explode.
"it is well known that the French position on CAP reform is that it wants some minor adjustments but not a revolution", commented Italian Minister Giovanni Alemanno, who also outlined that his country would sign this letter, "only if significant modifications are made to it". He believes that, for the moment, France, "is defending the CAP in a way that is very conservative" and which does not correspond to the Italian position that wishes to see significant revisions to aspects of this policy. "The letter said that the CAP is not a dastardly thing as some people claim", indicated Belgian Minister, Annemie Neyts. She also explained that this was not about "an alternative to the proposals of Mr Fischler. It says that we need a reform but that we should do it progressively…this doesn't mean we're going to sign it".
The Commission indicated that this alliance for opposing reform had very little chance of developing, even as a strategy for delaying negotiations. According to one Commission source, any serious coalition opposed to reform would need time before it became viable. Commissioner Franz Fischler declared that, "We have to wait and see what's going to happen. I can't see ten Member States opposed to the propositions (of the Commission) and if they come with really good ideas we'll examine them. But for the moment, I can't see any sign of what's going to happen". British Minister, Margaret Beckett repeated that her country remained convinced that the occasion had to be seized in order to make genuine changes and believed that the never-ending, ever growing wave of opposition to agricultural subsidies, demonstrated during the Johannesburg Summit, confirmed the need for reform. Mariann Fischer Boel, the President of the Agricultural Council declared, "I'm left asking myself whether the intention of these countries is to make the discussions last as long as possible" (on the Mid-term review). Ms Boel confirmed that it would be the Greek Presidency that would be charged with continuing the discussions. "We will not at all be able to finalise discussion on the mid-term review o the CAP under the Danish Presidency", she added.
The idea of this tribune was born during a private dinner in Brussels last July between French and Spanish Ministers and then grew during the course of a meeting that followed between six Member States of the "Friends of Fishing" group (Spain, France, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Greece).