EU farm ministers yesterday (20 October) held their first exchange of views on the Commission’s CAP reform proposals since they were tabled last week.
Ministers focused their discussions on three elements of the Commission proposal: Reserving payments for active farmers, reducing direct aid to the biggest farms and the so-called greening of direct payments, which makes subsidies conditional on the respect of environmental requirements.
Polish farm minister Marek Sawick, whose country currently holds the EU’s rotating Council Presidency, said that “there were some voices stating dissatisfaction, but this is normal because it is a starting document that we will continue working on.”
“I’d like to emphasise that we are at the very beginning of a very difficult road,” he told the press after the meeting.
“The part related to market regulation will be much easier to adopt, but the part linked to direct payments and rural development is much more controversial,” he said.
Greening problems
Indeed, according to a statement issued after the Council meeting, most countries seem to approve the proposed measures relating to market management. Actions proposed in favour of small farms and young farmers were generally well received as well.
But several member states raised concern over the EU executive’s proposal to reform the direct payment system, which provides subsidies to farmers.
While some countries agree to the principle of introducing a "greening" element to the EU's direct subsidy scheme, many questioned their compulsory connection to certain agricultural practices as well as the size of the national envelope reserved for environmental measures (30%).
Germany and France, for example, support the idea of greening but find that current proposals might lead to increasing budgetary and bureaucratic burdens in times of crisis.
Meanwhile, the UK argued that the Commission should have gone further and that the greening proposals would have little impact on the environment and, at worse, would prevent farmers from making the right decisions for sustainability.
The UK is also against proposals to cap the biggest payments.
A vast majority of delegations also raised concerns that the measures proposed by the Commission regarding direct payments and rural development seemed “to go against the simplification of the CAP,” which originally has been considered as a major objective of the post-2013 reform.
But EU farm chief Dacian Cioloş showed some optimism.
“My first impression is that our proposals were, in general, accepted better than I expected,” he told the press after the Council, arguing that most of the concerns expressed by member states were due to a superficial lecture of the Commission’s proposals.
Once the proposals are explained in detail, misunderstandings would be clarified, Cioloş said.
More debates before year end
Sawick said that the Polish EU Presidency would hold further ministerial talks on direct payments in November and on rural development in December.
In parallel to the ministerial closed-door discussion, at least two public debates are scheduled before the end of the year: EU ministers will express their views along with MEPs in the European Parliament on 7 November while a second debate will be organised with trade unions and economic experts.
“The schedule is very intense indeed,” noted Sawick, promising that the Polish Presidency would summarise the discussions before Christmas.
