On ‘CAP
Super Monday’ EP and Council compete in race to the bottom in
greening
Brussels – 18
June 2012
On what is a vital day during the
negotiations on the future of the Common Agricultural Policy, both the European
Parliament and the Council of the European Union have shown in reports presented
today that they have no intention of using this round of reform of the CAP to
tackle the damaging impacts of European farming.
The European Commission’s proposal, whilst by
no means as green as is needed, did offer a number of ways in which European
farmers could have contributed to halting the decline in natural resources.
However, under a pretext of simplification the proposal for greening is
gradually being turned into a system of ‘money for nothing’ by the European
Parliament and Council.
Faustine Defossez, EEB Agriculture Policy Officer commented on just one
of the ways in which the greening is being gutted;
“The list
of ways to duck greening rules is growing by the day. It now seems that anyone
who signs up to or invents a private, self-regulated scheme can dodge these
rules.” She added “On the one
hand the Council and the Parliament are trying to exempt as many farms as
possible, on the other those that are left will have to comply with an empty
shell of a greening package”.
Adding insult to injury the Council and the
Parliament reports give farmers carte blanche to continue existing practices of
water over-abstraction for agriculture, by allowing farmers in violation of EU
water legislation to continue receiving EU subsidies.
(1)
In a positive move the Parliament expressed
its support for keeping the ‘package’ of measures which farmers would have to
follow in order to qualify for greening funds rather than a ‘menu’ from which
they could choose. Also, by asking for a minimum spend of 30% on environmental
measures in the Pillar 2 the Parliament went further than the Council which did
not even address the issue. However, both the Council and the Parliament would
keep only 30% of direct payments reliant on undertaking those measures, meaning
that in some cases non compliance would be more lucrative for farmers – even if
it could mean losing 30% of their payments.
Faustine Defossez concluded; ‘Unless MEP’s and Agriculture Ministers change their
tune, the new CAP will, far from being a new contract between farmers and
society, just be another excuse to continue subsiding the most polluting
farmers’.
ENDS
(1) Under the EU’s Water Framework Directive,
Member States have drawn up plans to clean up Europe’s water by 2015. Farming remains a major source of
diffuse pollution and one of the biggest consumers of water, a failure to
include the WFD into the cross compliance system would therefore put up a major
obstacle to safeguarding this essential resource.
Created in 1974, the
EEB is now Europe's largest federation of environmental organisations
with more than 140 member organisations who gain their membership from the
general public. Because of this, we are guided by the voices of 15 million
European citizens, and act as the ears and voice of our members towards the EU
decision makers.
Contact: Faustine Defossez - Agriculture Policy Officer -
+32 (0) 2790 88
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