CAP reform: Flexibility is key
No one knew how much money they had to play with until the overall EU budget was agreed four weeks ago.
And last week’s first get-together of 27 EU agriculture ministers and the commission was not very conclusive. Council President Simon Coveney welcomed broad support for his proposal on distribution of payments within member states — but some ministers and Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Ciolos looked for greater movement to flat rate payments. A new redistributive payment proposal was broadly supported, but it came out of left field and will need lengthy consideration.
The ministers have a long way to go before arriving at their common view on the European Commission’s reform proposals. March 19 is their target decision date, but nothing is agreed until everything is agreed by all the ministers.
Next up to go through the same process of independently drawing up their views on the commission’s proposals are the 754 members of the European Parliament (which has equal weight to the ministers in deciding the outcome). They are to vote next week.
After the council and parliament agree their positions, there will be weeks of “back-and-forth” negotiations between them and the Irish presidency.
There will be another vote in both the council and parliament on a common position arrived at through the Irish presidency; or (which is very likely) through the incoming Lithuanian presidency.
Any early trends apparent to the myriad vested interests (the hundreds of farmers organisations, lobby groups, and other stakeholders across the 27 member states) watching the negotiations arequite likely to disappear as the negotiation process continues.
More often than not, a meeting of heads of state is needed to sort out the agreement. And when they start horse-trading, anything can happen.
Even when a CAP reform is agreed in principle, there will be huge flexibility on how it can be implemented in each member state. This time around, flexibility will be more important than ever, if there is to be any hope of proceeding any distance towards the flat rate payment per hectare of direct income aid from Brussels, which is proposed by the European Commission.
For example, this objective would leave every Spanish farmer with a single farm payment of just €50 per acre — which their agriculture minister has rejected.
Flexibility within countries that have widely varying regional agricultures is one of the few things ministers are agreed on at this stage.
