Events not to be dramatised. Learning of the first reactions to his plan to revise the common agricultural policy, Franz Fischler declared in July: "effervescence is part of tradition, in the CAP nothing is achieved without psychodrama". We must not therefore dramatise the events that accompany the debates in the Agriculture Council on the subject. And yet that is precisely what part of the press and some ministers are trying to do: One example: the letter in defence of the CAP written by seven ministers of agriculture and published by some twenty European newspapers was presented as a joint attack of the Fischler plan. Yet that text is there for all to see, and it is enough to read it to note that in truth it responds to the virulent attacks of which the CAP was the subject on the fringe of the FAO Summit against hunger in the world and the UN Summit on sustainable development.
This now famous letter (but more decried than actually read) states in substance that the CAP: no longer encourages over-production nor "productivist" methods, nor organises a "fortress Europe", does not harm poor countries, develops the quality and safety of food and that its cost is not excessive if account is taken of the scale of the tasks undertaken by farmers for society and nature. It recalls that the fight against hunger in the world needs to be won by backing food self-sufficiency in poor countries, which is undermined by the destruction of traditional farming caused by one only crops for exports. It reaffirms that "agricultural products are much more than goods" and that "farmers need to be reconciled with society, as the latter needs serene and confident farmers in the future, in sufficient numbers to ensure the economic balance of all our territories and maintain the diversity of our landscapes, that sign the identity of Europe".
Yet, in a different formulation, it is the same claims and the same objectives that appear in the Fischler plan! Franz Fischler himself, moreover, welcomed the initiative of the "seven" noting that they were defending the CAP "with the same arguments as the Commission's".
The two errors of the "seven". The ministers signatories of the letter (France, Spain, Austria, Portugal, Luxembourg, Greece and half of Belgium, that is to say Wallonia) certainly made an error by pointing to the previous reforms of the CAP but avoiding any allusion to an additional reform. They thus gave the impression of defending the CAP as it is today, and thus not backing the Fischler plan. Yet, the CAP can only be defended by considering it as a policy in movement, that adapts to developments in the situation and corrects deviations and abuses (which is in part done). The second error is to have failed to secure Italian support, to the extent that in Italy the letter was published accompanied by a comment from Agriculture Minister Gianni Alemano who defined it as a "bad move" and underlined that the signatory countries only represented 37 votes out of the 87 in Council. A superficial observer would conclude that there are to opposing parties in the EU: that of non-movement (conserving the CAP as it stands) and that of "tabula rasa" (abolish the CAP itself).
The two extreme stances are untenable. Franz Fishcler felt the danger of this radicalisation and last week warned the Council against the two extreme positions:
- on the one hand, "the fatal error" that would be to believe that Europe could do without a common agricultural policy. On the contrary, the new domestic and international challenges make it even more essential, and faced with the idea of its dismantling, Fischler stated: "I will neither allow such an anti-policy, nor re-nationalisation of the CAP". He is right to believe in the existence of a stance not favourable to the reform of the CAP but to its destruction; suffice it to read the following comment of the Financial Times to see it: "Diehard defenders of the CAP have long lived in a world of their own. Now, it appears, they inhabit they inhabit another planet. That is the only charitable explanation for the recent apoligia for the CAP written by the seven EU farm ministers (…) Their arguments are so flimsy and muddled, and its factual misrepresentations so egregious, that it seems likely to have the reverse of the intended effect". In fact, the paper's only argument against the CAP concerns export refunds, that is to say the one element that Fischler's reform rightly seeks to gradually abolish.
- on the other hand, the illusion of being able to avoid or delay the reform proposed. Recalling that the previous reforms (which, "despite the protests they raised", turned out to be positive for farmers), Fischler told the ministers: "we now have the chance to continue this way and make the future safer. We must not miss this opportunity.
We must not wait until events overtake us and the scope, which we have, gets tighter… Do you really believe, dear colleagues, that we will then be in a better situation in order to guarantee the future of the Common Agricultural Policy? I am convinced that that will not be the case."
All bar one. In my opinion, by avoiding both extremes - scrapping the CAP and keeping things as they are - it is possible today to devise reasonable compromises. Even the most scathing criticism of the Fischler Plan only cover application methods, not the guidelines or the principles. Italian minister Gianni Alemanno openly admitted this, noting that the premises of the reform were correct but the points of arrival left them perplexed. This makes his "No" perfectly manageable (although it seemed radical at first) since in practice he did no more than reject three areas of the Plan - cutting aid for durum wheat, how aid for cattle farmers is calculated and the lack of any plan for vegetable protein. No matter how important these three issues are, they do certainly not amount to a rejection of the direction of the reforms.
The same comment seems applicable to other "No" countries, save the biggest one - France. Opposition to the Fischler Plan in France has not only be affirmed by the agriculture minister Hervé Gaymard, but also in an explicit (and I would say formal) manner by prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin and French President Jacques Chirac.
France's "No" does not stand to reason. It is not negligible but one has to note that the interventions by the three top-ranking politicians do not criticise the content of the Fischler Plan, but focus on the timetable. France demands respect of the Berlin pledge (of 1999) whereby the CAP will be reformed in 2006 and not before. The weakness of this position can be seen. Firstly, the Commission keeps in right of initiative, in other words the option, or even the obligation of introducing what it feels are necessary proposals at what it feels is the appropriate time (and Fischler has explained on several occasions why this applies now). Secondly, the debate has just begun and will no doubt last some considerable time. When a compromise has been found, the new measures will not be applied straight off. Moreover, and more importantly, in several aspects the direction of the Fischler Plan largely corresponds to France's plans. Paris' negative attitude flows from political considerations connected with the desire to safeguard the existence of the CAP and not compromise future negotiations (with Germany and the UK) over the funding of the CAP. But it is precisely by improving the CAP, guiding it towards product quality and safety by encouraging low intensity production and getting rid of any remaining abuses and unjustified advantages for certain categories that it will be possible to defend it in the best possible manner both in and outside the EU.
Against the official position. I note that even the official position in France of "rejection for timetable reasons" is beginning to totter. On 12 September, Le Monde newspaper published an article by Arnaud Leparmentier under an eloquent headline: "France as gravedigger of the CAP?". The journalist argued that it was in France's interests to negotiate the reform of the CAP immediately since the more far-reaching the reform, the harder it would then be to challenge the existence of the CAP and its funding. Last week, the former foreign minister Jean-François Poncet wrote that the issue of the reform of the CAP has to be launched well before the 2006 deadline, even is the changes decided are postponed until later. He wrote that in order to save the CAP, it was also necessary to get Germany to make some financial concessions and attempt to take back the concessions granted to the UK, the justification for which no longer exists. Another important sign - the attitude of various French MEPs. I have already quoted at length from the draft resolution tabled by the EP rapporteur on the Fischler Plan, Joseph Daul, that subject to certain conditions generally favours the Plan (see my column of 24 September). At the end of last week, Parliament asked the European Commission to publish the list of companies receiving "export refunds" from the CAP since, as rapporteur Paulo Casaca explained, there has to be transparency over the money received by the "big agri-food multinationals" (see Europe of 27 September, p.18). This vote in the Parliament clearly went in the direction of continuing to cut export subsidies, which mainly go to multinationals and supermarkets and which, more importantly, are the part of the CAP that can be most damaging to developing countries.
If it freed itself of the doctrinaire slogans and positions of the past, France would be the engine of reform rather than the brake, and this would be logical for the EU's biggest agricultural producing country, in the interest of both French and European agriculture. Such an attitude would justify Franz Fischler's comments to the effect that the EU's criticisms of his Plan (which is not the first reform he had led) had been constructive, far more so than the reactions to his prospects for the CAP for 2000-2006. This is why he said he was rather optimistic about the possibility of making progress in the negotiations and concluding them on time. Fischler is right. (F. R.)