EU countries urge Commission to speed up cutting of red tape for farmers

Twenty-two European countries wrote to the Commission calling for immediate initiatives to respond to the agricultural crisis, with the bloc’s executive confirming its intention to table measures next week.

The letter, sent to the EU executive on Tuesday evening (5 March) and seen by Euractiv, calls for greater clarity on the short- and medium-term simplification measures that will be implemented in response to farmers’ anger.

“Given the level of farmers’ expectations, it is of upmost importance that we know quickly what changes will be made and in what timeframe,” reads the letter addressed to the Executive Vice-President of the European Commission Maros Šefčovič, and the Commissioner for Agriculture Janusz Wojciechowski.

The Commission confirmed to Euractiv that it intends to put forward its proposals next week, as announced in a document circulated on 22 February.

According to EU sources, the measures are to be announced on 15 March and will include legislative proposals on simplification and a document outlining possible initiatives on the food chain.

Easing CAP burden

The new iteration of the EU’s farming subsidy scheme, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), entered into force in 2023 with a new implementation system that gave more power and responsibility to member states. Since then, the criteria for accessing farming subsidies under the CAP have been a major point of contention among farmers.

“It is evident after the first year of implementation [that the management of the CAP] is becoming extremely complex both for farmers and administrations,” the letter reads.

The environmental standards “have become increasingly difficult to accept for farmers”, the European ministers stressed.

The Commission is ready to loosen monitoring, controls and environmental requirements to alleviate the administrative burden for growers.

In the 22 February document, the Commission hinted at changes in some of the good agricultural and environmental conditions (GAECs), the environmental requisites to receive the CAP subsidies, the exemption of small farms (less than 10 hectares) from controls of compliance with those requirements, and more flexibility to EU countries who want to change their national CAP Strategic Plans.

The executive’s “intention” to strengthen the contractual powers “of farmers in the food supply chain must also be clearly specified”, the ministers said.

The letter was spearheaded by French agricultural minister Marc Fesneau and his Spanish counterpart Lui Planas, and subsequently signed by ministers from all member states apart from Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Belgium.

As the current EU presidency, Belgium had already sent a letter to Commissioner Wojciechowski summing up the demands of member states for “rapid and structural responses” to the agricultural crisis.

In a meeting on 26 February, agricultural ministers stated that these measures were insufficient and that there was an urgent need to “reorient” the CAP.

Hands off the Green rules, NGOs say

On 6 March, more than 300 NGOs wrote in a letter made public that they are “deeply concerned by the latest measures taken by the European Commission [EC] and the recent announcements made by both the EC and the Belgian Presidency of the Council regarding the green architecture of the CAP”.

If the measures loosening GAEC requirements are implemented, the NGOs warned, this “would constitute a rollback compared to the previous CAP period” in terms of environmental ambition.

Farmers’ protests “cannot be used as an excuse to loosen the green architecture of the CAP, nor should environmental standards become a scapegoat to avoid addressing the lack of social and economic sustainability in the current agricultural system”, the NGOs stated.

EU countries ask Commission for changes in subsidies scheme

EU agriculture ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday (26 February) urged the EU executive to ‘reorientate’ the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) after the Commission’s ‘simplification’ package was deemed insufficient and farmers took to the streets of Brussels once again.

[Edited by Nathalie Weatherald]

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