Brussels, 01/07/2008 (Agence Europe) - Could the European Commission have jumped the gun? On Tuesday 1 July, it announced that the “vast majority” of member states would agree to abolish the system that required farmers to let some of their ground lie fallow (compulsory set-aside). European agriculture ministers have not made any comment on this issue, which is one of the many common agricultural policy (CAP) health check proposals. The Commission wanted to send a positive signal in response to the increasingly tight situation on the cereals market.
In fact, the Slovenian Presidency of the EU Council of Ministers concluded, after discussions in the Special Committee on Agriculture (SCA) on Monday 30 June, that most delegations had no objection to the abolition of the compulsory set-aside of 10% of land. That does not necessarily mean that these countries support the measure, with the final negotiations due to take place in November likely to be decisive. The SCA is made up of experts from member states whose task it is to prepare for European agriculture minister meetings. Some delegations (including Denmark and the United Kingdom) were more cautious, calling on the EU to ensure that it had the appropriate instruments to maintain the beneficial environmental effects of letting land lie fallow (such as pollination of crops by bees). Discussion, then, is not over, as the Commission would seem to have wanted to suggest. The Commission, in its health check proposals, is proposing the abolition of compulsory set-aside from 2009. It says that farmers can already benefit from the measure as of their autumn 2008 and spring 2009 sowings. Set-aside was provisionally suspended last year (the autumn 2007 and spring 20089 sowings) because of the soaring prices of agricultural primary products and the huge increase in world demand. (L.C./transl.rt)