No green light from Greens/EFA - CAP reform is set to again fail farmers, climate & environment
Common Agricultural Policy
Today, the majority of MEPs voted in favour of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for 2023-2027. Rather than using this next CAP period, and one third of the EU budget, to help solve the climate and environment emergency, or the loss of thousands of farmers per day, the final agreement repackages the status quo and falls short of the promises of the Green Deal.
Bas Eickhout MEP, Greens/EFA shadow rapporteur on the Strategic Plans Regulation in the Committee on the Environment and Vice-Chair of the Environment Committee, comments;
“Many are desperately claiming this is a sustainable CAP reform, but a powerful and entrenched intensive farming lobby, and the governments and MEPs serving them, have done their utmost to preserve the destructive status quo, resisting at every step additional safeguards and watering down environmental conditionality rules. They have wasted this 'last chance' CAP reform, holding back positive change for climate, biodiversity and small farmers this decade. Too much flexibility handed to the EU member states is a recipe for low ambition, so we will be checking the Commission does its job properly when assessing the Strategic Plans, to keep trajectories aimed high and aligned to the Green Deal, notably on reducing pesticide use, to ensure CAP becomes part of the solution, not remain part of the problem.”
Tilly Metz MEP, Greens/EFA shadow rapporteur on the Financing, Management and Monitoring regulation and Member of the Agriculture and Rural Development Committee, comments;
"The agricultural reform has not earned its name. The Common Agricultural Policy falls far short of the promises of the Green Deal and only cements the status quo. The clear winner is the agricultural industry. Whoever has the largest areas of land will continue to get the most money without any significant commitments to the protection of animals, the environment or the climate. The meagre efforts to protect the environment, climate and biodiversity are almost purely symbolic.”
Background:
The EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) accounts for almost €387 billion, roughly one third of the European Union's Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for the period 2021 to 2027. Three quarters of the payments are still area-payments and are subject to few conditions. The package consists of the regulations on the national strategic plans, the single common market organisation and the financing, administration and monitoring of the CAP. The agreement leaves the details of implementation largely to the EU member states.
