By Dacian Ciolos - 9th December 2011
The commission’s proposals for the CAP will tackle the three challenges of food security, sustainable management and territorial balance, writes Dacian Ciolos.
On October 12, the European commission published proposals for reforming the common agricultural policy (CAP) after 2013. Our aim has been to design a policy to address the three main challenges for the CAP – food security, the sustainable management of our natural resources, and maintaining the territorial balance in rural areas – through both our system of direct payments – first pillar – and our rural development policy – second pillar. Our proposals will not only lead to a more efficient, more understandable policy, but also provide an ambition for our agriculture and rural areas fit for the 21st century. In Europe, the earth is not just a factor of production for farmers, but it is also a public good for society as a whole, and this must be reflected in a public policy like the CAP.
For direct payments we are looking for a better targeting of funds among farmers underlying their importance as a basic income support. This will mean a redistribution of funds within member states, as we need to move away from allocations based on production levels from 2000-2002. There will also be a modest redistribution of funds between member states as a first step towards longer-term convergence. Similarly, we are seeking a limit on the amounts that any individual farm can receive, taking employment into account. A further element is a tighter definition of ‘active farmers’ to ensure that we close the remaining loopholes and guarantee that only real farmers can benefit from direct payments. Member states retain some flexibility for less favoured area payments. There is also strengthened support for young farmers, and a proposed small farmers scheme, which could provide a massive simplification for as many as a third of EU farmers and their national administrations.
A major change we are proposing is to pay 30 per cent of the direct payment envelope to farmers for the provision of public goods in the form of the three ‘greening’ measures that we have proposed. These are common agricultural practices important for preserving long-term productivity, but if every farmer in the EU does a little bit more, then the effect across the EU will be considerable. Such measures can then be complemented by agri-environment measures under rural development schemes. Indeed, one of our overall objectives of the reform is to boost the way in which the first and second pillars complement each other – the one, an EU-wide approach; the other, with the flexibility to take account of local specificities.
While successive reforms have made the CAP more market-oriented, we see factors every few months that underline that European agriculture cannot rely on the market alone. Our proposals seek to maintain our existing safety net mechanisms, but then add a new, emergency market crisis fund like the one we used to respond so swiftly to the E.coli vegetable scare this summer – and guard against price volatility. A further element is to encourage farmers to work more closely together in order to strengthen their negotiating position in the food chain.
There are many other elements in the package, but the last one which I want to mention specifically is our European innovation partnership, through which we hope to bring farmers and scientists much closer together and to accelerate the technological transfer from the laboratory to the field.
Unlike most of the previous reforms, this CAP negotiation will take place in parallel with the debate on the EU budget 2014-2020. This makes things considerably more complex. In the current economic and political climate, I believe that maintaining CAP spending at 2013 levels is reasonable.
One significant change for this reform is the fact that parliament will not merely be asked to give its opinion, but will be fully involved in the decision-making process. This participation will help us weave closer links between our policy and society as a whole. We must now develop this new co-decision process together, in a way that is both practical and efficient.
We are not starting from zero. Our experience last year with the parliament was positive. First, George Lyon drafted an own-initiative report which provided some good ideas for the way forward. Similarly, the report by Albert Dess was the subject of lengthy internal debate. But the final report voted through the plenary session provided us with key pointers as we drafted our reform proposals. As a result of this experience, I remain confident that the new procedure will help to ensure that our final deal will be closer to citizens’ wishes and an efficient instrument for EU farmers.
Dacian Ciolos is European agriculture and rural development commissioner
