CAP reforms have transformed EU role in world trade talks, says Boel

THE reforms that have been carried out to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) have transformed the role of the EU in world trade talks, according to agriculture and rural development commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel.

Speaking in South Africa, she said it was striking in the aftermath of the breakdown of last July’s world trade talks in Geneva that no-one was pointing at the EU as the villain of this play.

Ms Fischer Boel said: “In the EU, helping farmers used to mean supporting farm prices. To keep prices high, we spent large sums of public money on buying up unwanted produce and on subsidising exports. This approach was valid...but it ran out of control.

“When it did so... it put the EU on the defensive in international trade talks.”

Ms Fischer Boel said the CAP has moved on dramatically. Following successive reforms, the vast majority of support paid to EU farmers comes in the form of direct payments that are “decoupled” from production.

By contrast, the use of export subsidies has declined sharply.

Decoupled payments leave farmers free to base production decisions on the market, and therefore do not distort trade under World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules.

By shifting the emphasis of the CAP away from market management and towards decoupled payments, the EU has given itself room to accept tighter WTO disciplines on its farm sector.

“With CAP reforms at our backs we were able to play an extremely positive role in Geneva — looking for possible gains instead of staying defensively on the back foot,” she said.