European Union farm policy to be ‘more justifiable to the taxpayer’
Roger Waite, a leading Brussels-based commentator, said the future policy will be substantially different to the current Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and above all it will be easily more justifiable to the taxpayer.
Mr Waite, who edits AGRA FACTS, the international newsletter on the CAP, said European Commission president José Barroso has made it clear the EU budget after 2013 should be spent on things which the taxpayer understands and that have a real European added value. It should concentrate on issues such as climate change or pooling resources for research and development, but not for paying farmers on the basis of how many cattle they had in 2000-2002.
Mr Waite said the forthcoming changes will have winners and losers and Ireland will probably be a loser in pure financial terms, with or without the Lisbon Treaty.
Changes will not take place immediately after 2013. The period will start with the current system and move slowly but surely towards a radically new policy framework by 2019 or 2020.
Mr Waite said the political debate has yet to start on the size of the EU budget for agriculture and how the money is allocated within and between member states.
A further shift away from direct payments towards more targeted, more easily justified payments, probably under rural development schemes, seems inevitable.
“The bad news for Ireland in the current economic climate is that some form of co-funding of direct payments is probably unavoidable.
“This will ensure that the big net contributors like France and Germany pay less towards agriculture in countries such as Poland and Romania.”
Overall, he forecast that EU member states would be given even more flexibility in the way that they can spend their envelopes from the EU budget.
“In this sense, I wonder if it will still be appropriate to call it the Common Agricultural Policy.”
