Luxembourg, 11/06/2003 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday afternoon, the Greek Presidency submitted EU Agriculture Ministers with a cautious compromise text on reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, which only marginally amends the initial proposals made by the Commission. The Presidency left some aspect of reform alone, such s degression of aid and prices in the grain sector, demonstrating that the Council will have to examine several compromises in order to reach a political agreement. The Commission has allowed Franz Fischler to make some significant concessions (see EUROPE yesterday p 10). On the subject of convergence between France and Germany, Minister Renate Künast declared that they would focus on partial decoupling of aid, modulation and limits to financial framework. According to the Minister, reform should not allow for lowing in grain prices (as France wanted) and the "need for degression in aid could even be questioned".
When EUROPE was going to press, Ministers had finished their first table tour and were each in turn entering the "confessional" with the Presidency and the Commission. In its first compromise, the Presidency introduced, with extreme caution, a partial decoupling of direct aid and the production volume but excluding the following from this system: direct aid in deprived and remote areas; the additional bonus for ovine and caprine in deprived and mountainous areas; aid for grain drying. Modulation of aid could begin earlier than proposed by the Commission (by 2004 or 2005 instead of 2007. This would require a modification of financial perspectives due to the European council of Brussels in October 2002 (on the ceiling, at the 2006 level, for agricultural spending in the market up to 2013: Editor's note). As for conditionality of aid (granting aid on the condition that certain principles re respected), Member States could keep back 25% (instead of 35%) of the amounts set aside by this principle. Furthermore, the list of demands that should be respected in the framework of conditionality of aid is reduced from 38 to 18 and provisions are planned for to ensure that farmers will be penalised only if they are directly responsible for failing to respect these criteria. Still on the subject of conditionality of aid, the list of good agricultural conditions will be strongly reduced and simplified to deal uniquely with "risks of land abandonment". The current system of land rotation will be maintained, including the chance to cultivate for non-food aims on land left fallow. The agricultural advice system will be up and running as from 2007 (and perhaps made voluntary later, following an evaluation report by the Commission in 2010). The Presidency is also suggesting getting rid of provisions for introducing this advice system for farms where producers' profits are above EUR 100,000.
Sectoral proposals: greater flexibility will be introduced regarding the penalty for superseding the maximum surfaces guaranteed for rice; the minimum prince will be maintained for the production of potato starch; the common organisation for dried fodder will remain; there will be no supplementary increase (in relation to measures already decided in Agenda 2000) for milk quotas in 2007-2008, as well as decoupling of aid in the sector, which will be applied once reform is entirely implemented.
Commission authorises Mr Fischler to substantially amend proposals
As announced in EUROPE yesterday, on Wednesday, the European Commission authorised Commissioner Franz Fischler to accept certain amendments to proposals in reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, to take into account the compromise papers that the Greek presidency submitted to the Council. In a communication to the Commissioners, Mr Fischler confirmed that given that a majority of Member States are still opposed to the main aspects of the reform, such as the reform proposed by the Commission, "it is clear that amendments will now be substantial". This explains why he requested the authorisation to amend each of the Commission proposals that reflect the Presidency's compromise, on the condition that the proposals: take into account the conclusions of the Summits of Berlin Gothenburg, Brussels and Copenhagen, particularly in respect to the ceiling for financial perspective for direct aid from CAP and market measures till 2013; favour a better balance between support for and strengthening of rural development. Mr Fischler stressed that decoupling was an "essential element of reform".