MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

EU unveils plans for a “greener” 60 billion Euro Common Agricultural Policy

Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Ciolos: fairer CAP for consumers and taxpayers

EU farm spending, worth almost 60 billion Euros annually, should no longer be based on previous subsidy levels for farmers, the European Commission has said. But subsidies are still needed to protect Europe's food supplies and rural diversity, it believes.

The proposals are contained in an EU blueprint for farming beyond 2013.

Critics say too much of the EU budget is spent on supporting farmers and too little on skills and innovation.

Presenting the plans on Thursday, Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Ciolos said the payments system - the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) - must become “greener, fairer, more efficient and more effective”.

“Farmers will still have direct support, which will be linked to how they produce. This will look at how they manage natural resources in a sustainable way, taking into account the environment, biodiversity and soil and water quality” said Ciolos.

He added that the EU must make its farm policy easier to understand, because “it is for all EU citizens - as consumers and taxpayers”.

The CAP's twin-pillar structure: direct payments and separate grants for rural development, should be maintained, he said.

The CAP is the biggest item in the EU budget, followed by “Cohesion” spending - grants to develop the EU poorest regions.

Price support to protect EU farmers - called “market measures” - encouraged over-production in the past, leading to butter mountains and wine lakes. However the EC says market measures accounted for 92% of CAP spending as recently as 1991, but that dropped to just 7% last year.

The EC options for the CAP will be discussed by the 27 EU member states before new legislation is presented in mid-2011.

The EU's direct payments to farmers are based on historical reference periods - a system the Commission wants to reform.

Mr Ciolos said the EU could no longer tolerate a system with one set of rules for the older member states - the EU-15 - and another set for the newer ones, the EU-12. Most of the latter are former communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe.

The blueprint also calls for support “better targeted towards active farmers”. One of the criticisms of the CAP is that big landowners can receive payments even if their land is worked by tenant farmers or used by other rural businesses.

The blueprint has a long battle ahead since countries like France and Germany support balanced aid, whereas the UK and the Netherlands want to go radically further, such as ending income support and market intervention.

EU farmers' union Copa-Cogeca said the Commission's focus on “greening” the CAP risked undermining EU food production by increasing farmers' costs.

”The only concrete proposal in the paper is to add more costly (environmental) burdens onto EU farmers,“ said Copa President Padraig Walshe. ”Increasing costs lowers incomes and will have a devastating effect on production,” he told a news conference in Brussels.

The negative reaction from farm unions, whose views carry considerable weight in many national agriculture ministries, anticipates difficulties for the Commission when it presents its vision for the reform to EU farm ministers on November 29.

But initial reaction from the European Parliament -- which will have an equal say in the reform with EU governments – seems to have been more positive.