'Could do better' is end of term report

As 2012 draws to a close and the Cypriot EU Presidency concludes, agriculture ministers and MEPs across the 27 member states took time this week to reflect on how CAP reform negotiations have gone over the past six months.

Agra Europe reports that there was a general feeling of satisfaction that significant progress has been made but also the admission that much work still needs to be done in the coming six months under the Irish Presidency.

On Tuesday, ComAgri announced that from the near 8 000 amendments to the European Commission’s CAP reform proposals sought by member states, the total has now been whittled down to just 100 compromise agreements, which will be voted on in January. A final vote will only take place once the EU’s next long-term budget has been agreed (likely to be early February, 2013).

The outgoing Cypriot Presidency released its progress report on its six months in charge of CAP reform, praising the 'positive spirit' of the negotiations over the period, but observers would still probably come away with a nagging feeling of ‘must try harder’.

As Irish farm minister Simon Coveney reiterated, 'nothing is agreed until everything is agreed,' admitting it would be a 'big ask' to get a CAP deal by June, which is widely seen as the deadline if parts of the new policy will be ready for 2014.

Many ministers were openly frustrated at the lack of progress on the EU’s 2014-2020 budget, which is undoubtedly the major hurdle for the reform of the CAP. Of course, the amount spend on the CAP is a hurdle in the way of a budget agreement in the eyes of some member states, not least the UK. Beyond that there are still obviously problems to be ironed out with the ‘greening’ element of the proposals as well as questions about the plan for the internal convergence of direct payments. What that means is that some get more, but perhaps not as much as they hoped for, and others get less. That's never an easy balance to draw.

Parliament delays CAP reform process

The decision by the European Parliament’s agriculture committee (ComAgri) to delay a vote on laying out its official position on CAP reform until the beginning of next year once again brings into question whether an agreement can be made in time for the new policy to be implemented by the start of 2014. Indeed, for some time I have thought this very unlikely.

Although an official date for the vote was never set, it was generally considered that one would need to take place either this month or next in order for the Farm Council to have enough time to reach a consensus on its own reform package, and then for ‘trilogue’ talks to be held between EU institutions that will finally result in an agreement for the 2014-2020 CAP budget, reports Agra Europe.

MEPs have made it clear that they will not be pushed into approving the next CAP until the EU’s next long term budget is in place and the generally negative feedback from the Cypriot Presidency’s recent proposal to shave €7 billion off the bloc’s multiannual financial framework (MFF) for 2014-2020 is not an encouraging sign that heads of state will come to a firm agreement by the end of the crunch summit on November 22-23.

Those calling for a freeze or cut in real terms to the EU budget will have seized on the recent European Court of Auditors report, which again found that large sums of budget funds in 2011 were misspent, with rural development spending coming in for particular criticism. This is likely to increase the vulnerability of this form of expenditure to cutbacks given the importance of the single farm payments to the revenue streams of most farmers.

With austerity biting across the EU, and distrust in the institutions growing among the electorate, particularly in the UK, it must now be time for the European Commission to push through improved measures of accountability and transparency on how funds are being spent.

Cypriot presidency contemplates CAP budget cuts

The informal meeting of farm ministers in Nicosia from 9 to 11 September which marks the effective start of the Cypriot presidency after the August holiday break is going to focus on water scarcity, land abandonment and soil erosion. These are important topics, against the background of climate change, and especially important to southern member states, but they are not at the heart of the CAP reform agenda.

However, the word is that the Cypriot presidency thinks that there will have to be much bigger cuts to the CAP budget in the next seven year cycle than contemplated hitherto. This comes against the background of talk of a €100m cut in the EU budget to match austerity at home. As the largest budget line, the CAP would have to take its fair share of the pain.

It is being said that direct payments to farmers and rural development would take the biggest hit which makes sense as they are the largest components of the budget. There might be more flexibility to switch between these two budget lines.

Needless to say, some member states are already gearing up to oppose any such move. The other difficulty is that there is a great temptation in such circumstances to reduce spending by x per cent across the board without considering which spending offers a cost effective way of achieving policy objectives. But, then, that has been the story of the CAP.