EEB

Press Release

EEB reaction to CAP Communication: first steps towards a greening of the CAP?

[Brussels, 19^th November 2010] – The EEB, Europe’s largest federation of environmental organisations, welcomes the fact that the Commission includes in its proposal the seeds for a greening of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Crucial new elements being explored in the paper are the greening of the direct payments by introducing a green mandatory component, the focus on the delivery of public goods, High Nature Value Farming (HNV), organic farming, the Natura 2000 network and the integration of the Water Framework Directive into Cross Compliance.

The EEB is calling for a radically reformed CAP which will ensure long term food security, both in Europe and globally, and boost its environmental credentials where it currently has a particularly poor record. A clear choice for these new green elements in the legal proposal for a new CAP the Commission will now prepare would do exactly that.

“Despite the improvements made during previous reforms, the CAP is still doing serious damage to our ecosystems. We are in the midst of an ecological crisis, and as such the reform of CAP must reflect modern needs. This means shifting damaging subsidies to those which help preserve our biodiversity, water and soil and food security” said Faustine Defossez, EEB Agriculture Policy Officer.

Given its crucial role in delivering for the environment and in providing farmers with incentives to adopt more sustainable practices, the EEB is deeply worried by the absence in the paper of agri-environmental schemes. Equally worrying is the absence of forest-environmental schemes, an important innovation of the last CAP reform.

Although the explicit mentioning of HNV and organic farming is positive, it is important they are not narrowly seen as geographical areas or part of a quality policy but promoted more widely as the sustainable production systems that they are and therefore justifying support.

The integration of certain requirements of Natura 2000 areas into the mandatory greening component of the direct payments is a must, with additional support to come from the second pillar. And now that the river basin plans, including measures to be taken by farmers, under the Water Framework Directive are in place, it is high time to include the WFD into Cross Compliance.

Commissioner Ciolos made no bones about it during his presentation of the Communication to the Committee for Agriculture in the European Parliament: the Common Agricultural Policy is addressed to the farmers but is made out with public money and the amount of money devoted to its implementation should therefore be justified and more understandable to the taxpayers.

At a time when budgetary pressures across the EU are increasing for all public spending, only a fully coherent system of payments for public goods will be able to justify a significant amount of funding to remain under the CAP.