CAP reform: Parliament reacts to Council's mandate

The EU Parliament welcomed on Wednesday the Agriculture Council's general approach on the reform of the EU farm policy but stressed that in some areas tough negotiations will have to take place.

"We welcome the position of EU agriculture ministers on the reform of the EU farm policy. This is excellent new as now both Parliament and Council are ready and real negotiations on the future shape of the Common agricultural policy can start", said Paolo De Castro (S&D, IT), chair of the EP Agriculture committee.

"There are some areas where Council followed Parliament's lead and other where we will have to negotiate intensively. European Parliament is determined to strike a deal as soon as possible, but speedy negotiations must not compromise the result, which should be fairer, more sustainable and less bureaucratic farm policy ensuring food security for all EU citizens", Mr. De Castro added.

'Largely in the right direction'

The CLA said that the Council of Ministers' decisions on CAP reform have bolstered the proposals.

CLA Deputy President Henry Robinson said: "We are pleased EU Agriculture Ministers - in the wake of the European Parliament's decision on CAP last week - have improved the proposals in two areas which could have caused major problems for UK farmers, those relating to the definition of 'active farmers' and payment capping as a result of lobbying by the CLA and other industry bodies.

"The active farmer requirement would have been a bureaucratic nightmare for farmers and the payment agencies in England and Wales, and imposing capping would have sent entirely the wrong message on the desirability of farms consolidating and taking advantage of economies of scale."

However, Mr Robinson said it was "disappointing" that the Council of Ministers has chosen to take Europe's farmers one step further away from a level playing field when it comes to switching money between the agricultural pillar (Pillar One) and rural development pillar (Pillar Two) of the CAP.

He said: "We ought to be moving towards a system that reduces distortions between farmers in different countries. Instead, we are increasing these distortions by supporting the ability of member states to switch payments between the pillars.

"Nevertheless, the Ministers support for tailoring the Commission's greening requirements to the needs of different types of farm is welcome."

The CLA Deputy President added: "We are cautiously optimistic Environment Secretary Owen Paterson's plan to tie the Commission's greening proposals into English agri-environment schemes will prove to be a fair and sensible way forward.

"We will continue to examine the details of what the Council of Ministers has said and work with the Environment Secretary, Defra and industry partners to secure CAP reform that works for farmers and the environment."

Direct payments and Rural development

"Double funding is absolutely unacceptable. It destroys the legitimacy potential of the greening, by watering down environmental demands and by the possibility of granting a payment two times for the same purpose", said rapporteur for the Direct payments and Rural development regulations Luis Manuel Capoulas Santos (S&D, PT).

"According to the Council suggestions, the payment for young farmers becomes voluntary, which is totally contrary to the EP mandate and the objective of generational renewal and promoting dynamic rural economies", he explained.

"The EP as the representative of EU citizens has taken a historically important decision on the capping of payments to farmers. It is highly disappointing to see that the Council has taken a different stand on this by adopting a voluntary character for degressivity and capping of payments", Mr. Capoulas Santos added.

"Parliament has been requesting the results of negotiations on the national envelopes that seem to have been sorted over the MFF negotiations. It has been more than a month and the EP rapporteurs on the CAP are still not aware of the figures. If there is opacity, there must be a reason for that and I will not sit down at the negotiation table on these issues without information on what figures the Council has decided to put down", Mr. Capoulas Santos concluded.

Common market organisation

"Apart from some limited progress on planting rights and sugar quotas, I regret that no deep reflection, nor innovative proposal, was made by the Council to strengthen the position of producers in the food supply chain and to secure more their increasingly low and volatile income", said rapporteur for the Common markets organisation regulation Michel Dantin (EPP, FR).

"Apparently little focused on this regulation, the Council has merely broadly endorsed the proposal from the Commission, while trying to remove Parliament's jurisdiction over certain essential elements of the text such as reference prices or public intervention. I hope that future negotiations will breathe a little more inspiration and ambition to the Council on these major issues for agriculture in our continent", Mr. Dantin added.

Financing, management and monitoring

"The time has come for an open debate between Parliament and Council. Our priority is administrative simplification and transparency and this will be our red line in negotiations", said Giovanni La Via (EPP, IT), rapporteur for the financing, management and monitoring regulation.

"In this context, I regret the fact that Council wants to apply additional sanctions to farmers who will not be able to apply mandatory greening measure. Those farmers will already lose greening component of their direct payments and I believe this is a penalty high enough", Mr. La Via added.

Next steps

The final shape of the new EU farm policy will be decided by the European Parliament, EU farm ministers and the European Commission, in three-way negotiations which are set to begin on 11 April. This is the first reform of the EU's agricultural policy where the European Parliament acts as co-legislator on an equal footing with the Council.