‘Disappointing’
and a ‘missed opportunity’ were commonly used
descriptions aired by Ministers to describe the Commission’s
CAP reform proposals. Speaking on 20 October at the first
Ministerial Council meeting following the publication of the
proposals, Ministers universally condemned the proposals for adding
‘red tape’ or ‘green tape’ to farmers and
Member State administrations.
One thing
is sure: with 27 Member States and over 600 MEPs to please, the
proposals are not going to make everyone happy. Some parts of the
package were greeted with general approval, such as the schemes for
young and small farmers, for retaining coupling in sensitive areas
and the further attempt at restricting payments to ‘active’
farmers. But these plaudits were limited.
Flat-rating ‘too quick’ says Spelman
Secretary
of State Caroline Spelman supported her Welsh, Scottish and N Ireland
neighbours with a plea that the proposed rate of transition to a
flat-rate system within each Member State was too quick.
Wales has
already indicated that they are considering a single payment region.
Since the payment differential is being reduced between Member States
we anticipate that there may be pressure to even up payments between
England and Scotland.
Most
delegations asked for more flexibility in implementing the Pillar 1
reforms, including Spelman for the UK, with more discretion given
over the 30% greening payment and the percentage rate for
environmental set-aside. But this amount of discretion would never
be provided within the Council and Commission Regulations of CAP
direct payments. Considerable discretion can be given with
legislation enacted as Directives or with schemes involving
co-financing of payments, such as Rural Development programmes, but
not within direct payment schemes applying the same rules for all.
Most
Member States attacked the Commission’s ‘greening’
proposals in detail, focusing particularly on the 30% payment tier as
being too high and the 7% ‘ecological focus area’ as
being ‘excessive’ and ‘counter-productive’.
Spelman called for all greening measures to be left in Pillar 2,
allowing Pillar 1 payments to be phased out “as food prices
rise”.
Echoing
Farm Ministers’ concerns about ‘green’ tape, MEPs
sitting on the European Parliament’s Agriculture and Rural
Development Committee (COMAGRI) also raised concerns about the
complexity of the greening measures proposed. Ciolos’ response
to criticism over the complexity of the multi-layered Pillar 1
payment, and the greening element in particular, is that all States
recognise the importance of greening measures to provide a ‘mass
effect’ across the whole EU.
The
Commission’s impact analysis which accompanied the proposals
suggested that greening would:
reduce the loss of grassland on about 13m ha
Reduce monoculture by about 1.7m ha
Set aside 3.6m ha of arable land.
The impact
assessment also includes an increase in over-wintered cover of 20m
ha. This measure never reached the final proposal.
When
questioned as to whether some Pillar 2 agri-environment schemes could
be included as a Pillar 1 ‘greening tier’, Commissioner
Ciolos said that the “idea was not to mix these issues”
but he was open to discussion as to whether some ‘certified’
schemes may be included. Whether included formally or not, ELS or
HLS scheme holders who have in-field options and buffer strips would
qualify in any event.
39% in UK agree with capping
The UK,
Germany, Romania, Czech, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Latvia and Slovakia
spoke up against capping. Discussions in Council earlier in the year
revealed that a high proportion of States opposed capping and this
remained the case at the Council meeting of 14 November. With three
big countries – Germany, Italy and UK – all against, and
smaller countries from both the Mediterranean and eastern blocks also
not in favour, there should be sufficient dissent to block this
element of the reform.
Interestingly
39% of British people surveyed agree with capping payments because
the “biggest farms don’t need unlimited payments but
still benefit from these subsidies”, according to a
Eurobarometer survey carried out this summer. A quarter opposed
capping because “the bigger the farms the bigger the needs”.
The figures for the EU as a whole are respectively 47% for capping
and 28% against.
A higher
proportion of people support a link between payments and EU-wide
environmental protection measures than area-specific environmental
protection.
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