Agra Europe | March 8, 2002
Top European farmers' leaders slammed the door in the face of reforms to EU agriculture policy at the launch of a new position paper on Friday, insisting that no changes should be made before the current CAP expires in 2006.
Gerd Sonnleitner and Marcus Borgstrom, presidents respectively of COPA and COGECA, Europe's biggest farmers' federations, protested that this year's Mid-Term Review (MTR) of the CAP should be an exercise in analysis only.
The structure of farm policy was effectively set in stone by the 1999 Berlin agreement which set budget limits until 2006, they said. "The only possible justification for considering anything more than reports on the CAP, prior to 2006, would therefore be if budgetary expenditure in the agricultural sector was at risk of exceeding the ceiling set by the European Council in Berlin and/or there was a serious deterioration in the overall market situation," said a joint statement. "This is clearly not the case."
"Therefore, COPA and COGECA expect that before 2006 the European authorities will respect the decisions adopted by the Berlin Summit and that there will be no changes ... until then."
Such a rearguard action from proponents of traditional farm policy is not unexpected, given the vested interests involved.
Fischler plans limited changes
EU farm Commissioner Franz Fischler, under pressure from pro-reform states such as Germany, the UK and the Netherlands, has already given COPA-COGECA some comfort by indicating that biting changes will not be contemplated at this stage.
Nonetheless, Fischler has also made clear that he wants to see a major swing in subsidies away from the so-called 'first pillar' of the CAP, which covers market supports and direct aids, towards the 'second pillar', which covers rural development and agri-environmental measures.
The Commissioner has even said that the disproportionate amount of money received by big arable farms at the expense of rural development activities is 'immoral.'
No switching between 'pillars'
COPA-COGECA paid lip-service to the idea of enhanced funding for the second pillar, but were vehemently opposed to any redistribution of funds within the CAP budget to achieve this.
"Every possibility of introducing new funds into the second pillar should be exhausted. Transfers from the first to the second pillar must be avoided and the distribution of all CAP funds should be examined in order to ensure complementarity between the pillars," they insisted.
The position paper placed continued emphasis on "market management," "price safety nets," "stabilising mechanisms," and other old-style devices.
Economic sustainability
"It must be ensured that revenue from the market and the political system provide economic stability and security for farmers in a way which will enable them to make a reasonable living as well as to make the necessary investments and cover the costs of meeting ... sustainable ground rules," said Sonnleitner and Borgstrom.
Sustainability and food quality are recurrent themes in the policy document. They are welcomed as worthy objectives, but on the assumption that consumers will, either directly or through their taxes, have to pay for the privilege of ecologically-sound, high quality food production.Agra Europe:
