The debate on the EU's future agricultural policy has already begun. For the moment, official negotiations are focusing on adjustments and improvements under the CAP “health check”. The big questions will not formally be tackled until the second half of the year: the role and importance of agriculture for Europe, needs (or does not need) a common policy, Community funding or limits to this funding. However, the ongoing debate and the debate in the future partly overlap because the “health check” measures involve orientations that will influence what happens later. We can see this in the negotiations at the Council and at the European Parliament. The draft report by Lutz Goepel MEP (EUROPE 9588) already raises some fundamental choices: the relationship between support for farmers and production (increase cross-compliance or, on the contrary, re-establish a narrower link between aid and prices?). This is a choice that will influence future orientations.
The highest level of political involvement is indispensable. The danger is that the debate that has just kicked off is at risk of remaining confined to sector political leaders (ministers for agriculture, European Commissioner for agriculture, European Parliament's agricultural committee) and others involved in this sector (farmers, agricultural organisations, processing industries). This would be a mistake that could have disastrous repercussions because political involvement at the highest level is indispensable. In the current circumstances, together with the prospects that are being outlined, agriculture has to be at the centre of everyone's concerns because it involves an essential aspect for the future of humanity in general and Europe in particular. This is not a new discovery for this column: how many positions have been taken defending farming in Europe at the price of significant opposition and even sarcasm?
The stakes at play are even clearer today, as the risks of world food shortages and price hikes of basic products help to raise awareness. The very complex negotiations, however, inevitably focus on technical aspects and discourage non-specialists. They should therefore be preceded by a global reflection, with a strong political line taken that makes the following observations:
1. If the EU had gone down the road of opening up its borders to food products from the whole world by getting rid of “Community preference” and support for European products, there would be practically no farming in Europe today, territorial balance in our countries would have almost been destroyed and European civilisation largely swallowed up. This was however, what the British and a few other governments and powerful organisations, like Oxfam, demanded. The principle of balanced agricultural activity covering all member states should be reaffirmed.
2. The question of food is much more challenging than that of energy or defence. Europe has been blackmailed over petrol; blackmail over food is a much more serious threat (some third countries have already announced the possible suspension of their exports of wheat and other cereals). Europe is compelled to safeguard its food autonomy and its self-sufficiency. This does not mean blocking imports, far from it but it does mean being able to feed its population if necessary.
3. The EU has to safeguard its role of provider of food aid to poor countries. Famines are still possible and periodic disasters, inevitable. Europe has to be able to intervene in the interest of the most vulnerable people.
Prejudice persists. We could imagine that the fundamental principles mentioned have now been acquired and that the era when the Sapir report called on the EU to get rid of CAP funding and investigations by Federico Rampini accusing the EU of ruining poor countries because it funded its own farming, belong to the past. But the following declaration by Daniel Gros, CEPS director, was made this month, “All Europe's economists believe that Common Agricultural Policy is useless. CAP accounts for around 40% of the European budget, which could be used for other things (Le Soir, 16 January).
There is still, therefore, some way to go before the importance of agriculture to Europe is understood by all.
(F.R.)