Brussels, 31/05/2007 (Agence Europe) - French Agriculture Minister Christine Lagarde said in Brussels on Thursday 31 May that the European Commission had assured her that the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) “health check”, to be carried out in 2008, would not result in further budgetary reform of the policy before the end of the current financial perspective in 2013. She also repeated the French position, which is shared by the other producer countries, on the reform of the fruit and vegetable sector, which is expected to be approved by the Agriculture Council on 12 June.
After meeting Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel, Ms Lagarde told press that the health check would clearly not cast any shadow over CAP funding until 2013. The health check would only be the opportunity to assess “the implementation of the reformed CAP,” she said. When asked by a journalist if she feared a “telescoping” of the CAP health check in 2008 and the mid-term review of the entire EU budget scheduled for 2008-2009, Ms Lagarde said that Ms Fischer Boel had assured France that there would be no “collusion” between the health check and the financial perspective. She went on that the exercise would consist of an examination, “for post 2013”, of the principles of decoupling and modulation of direct payments, and the retention or withdrawal of some (milk) quotas. “Checking the health of a patient does not mean prescribing medicine,” the French minister said. When asked about her vision of the future of the CAP, Ms Lagarde said only that the health check would be carried out “in order to modernise agriculture and make it more strategic, more productive and more competitive. But agreements (on CAP funding until 2013) have been signed. We will expect them to be respected”.
On the reform of the fruit and vegetable sector, she called for an instrument (a fund) to be put in place for the multi-annual management of crises caused by climatic disturbances (which are, “by their nature, unpredictable”). The Commission, in its proposal, restricted itself to annual budgets. The aim of the negotiation on this aspect of the reform would be to find consensus on the financial arrangements to remedy the disadvantages of this annual criterion, Ms Lagarde said. In addition, the money should be available at all times as part of the budgetary envelopes allocated to member states, she went on. France, like other countries, was calling for (“as long as possible”) a transition period before moving to total decoupling of aid for processed products, she said. The Commission would be happy to see partial decoupling, but for “as short as possible” a transition period. (lc)