How will Brexit affect the EU's agricultural policy (the 'CAP')?

In a new study (PDF) for the European Parliament's agriculture committee on the interaction between the EU's agriculture and foreign policy, Alan Swinbank has also included a section on the effects of Brexit (pp. 34-5).

In short, he makes three main points:

• A sizable amount of money will be missing as Britain is a net contributor and there'll also be a net loss to agricultural funds spent outside the UK.
• Trade flows will be affected, for example for the Irish dairy and beef sector.
• The UK's reform oriented voice will be missing in the post-2020 EU agriculture policy discussions. We can expect more public intervention and spending in agriculture afterwards.

It'll be interesting to play these kinds of scenarios out for all major EU policies, as the EU will slowly have to prepare for a time post-Brexit, the changed power dynamics between member states (and to some extent this will also affect the European Parliament), and the resulting policy-changes.

Some argue that Brexit will bring the EU more together, but what if this "togetherness" will actually be more backwards-looking than forward-looking? What if it means going back to times when the EU invested more in food subsidies than it did for future-oriented technology and investment?

Fish & Fields: EU reforms for the better?

CAP and CFP are the EU abbreviations of the week, but they will remain extremely important for the months to come.

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) of the European Union need reform, and with the informal meeting of EU ministers responsible for fisheries (see also: Euronews) and the data harvest of CAP subsidies for all member states - except Great Britain - there were two notable events on Monday and Tuesday that made the euroblogosphere talk about CAP and CFP.

Both reforms have already begun with public consultations but their outcomes are uncertain.

The fisheries policy consultations are already finalised, with over 300 reactions from the public and interested stakeholders as well as a statement by the EESC, the European Economic and Social Committee (a consultative body of the EU). In the light of these discussions, the European Movement in the UK also sees an urgent need to reform the fisheries policy and not to let the CFP slip back into the hands of the member states. (Update:) And the Commission seems to agree.

In the same business, but on the fields instead of on the sea, the EU Commission is inviting the public to participate in the CAP reform consultation. This is more necessary than ever seeing that the subsidies spent through the EU's agricultural policy are largely misdirected. Without a reform of the CAP, the whole "Europe 2020" reform will not be possible as Valentin notes, not least because most of the EU's budget is wasted for large-scale agriculture, to the disadvantage of the future of the EU and to the disadvantage of farmers all over the world, instead of investing it in future technologies and the brains of EU citizens.

And so, while the National Farmers' Union has reportedly issued its vision on the future of agriculture in the EU and while Commissioner Ciolos is already participating in different consultation meetings - e.g. in the EESC - it remains absolutely vital that people like the guys from Farmsubsidy.org keep track and follow the subsidy money to give a real basis for the debate - e.g. that the number of "CAP millionaires" continues to rise - both for us bloggers but also for the mainstream media.

Most eyes may be on Greece these days, but we should also keep our ears open and listen to the proposals for the fisheries and agriculture reforms because they will be as important for the future of the Union as the stability of the financial markets.

Picture: © marcs-album / CC BY-NC 2.0

Cecilia Malmström & transparency in the EU Commission

In a recent blog post (Google translated), Commissioner Malmström told that she would (partially) publicise her official communication on a special Commission website called CaROL (Cabinet's online register)*.

In the comments to the post I asked her:

Will you be able to convince your colleagues in the Commission to do the same?

and her Cabinet assistant Love Berggren today gave me the following answer:

Cecilia Malmström’s would certainly welcome if other Commissioner’s were to follow, and hopes to provide a good example by making this register available. But the decision is up to each and every Commissioner.

I want to thank her assistant Love for the answer - and I definitely hope that Ms Malmström will serve as an example for her colleagues, indeed!

PS.: This seems to be "Commissioners' Reactions Day", since fellow euroblogger Samuel just received a reaction to one of his blog posts from EU Commissioner for Agriculture Dacian Ciolos.

---

* You can use the following short link for direct access to all the correspondence of Commissioner Malmström: bit.ly/9H8ib8 - which can be helpful because in default it shows only the last ten letters.

---

Picture: © european_parliament / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Commission consultation: EU agriculture post 2013

Do you know how the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the EU should look after 2013?

If yes, just follow the invitation* of the European Commission, join the debate, and read what others have answered on the questions posed by the Commission.

If you need some more facts on how the billions of euros (almost 50% of the EU budget) for the CAP are wasted invested, why not reading Jack Thurston's "Does the CAP fit?" on FollowTheMoney.eu or why not going to Farmsubsidy.org to search how CAP money is spent in your country (see sidebar) or your city (search field)?**

But apart from that:

Does anybody believe in the possibility that the CAP is ever reformable? I suppose that not even Commissioner Cioloş is... Or are you, Sir?

---

*Via Wyn Grant
** Thanks at Jack for a great presentation on farmsubsidy.org at the re:publica 10 conference!

Picture: @amypalko / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

And Commissioner Ciolos first met with...

... the Spanish presidency and representatives from the Spanish agricultural sector.

He doesn't write about it in a blog (he has one but it's still empty) like his colleague Piebalgs, but it's in a press release that strangely enough is in French although published in the English Midday Express by the Commission press service.

Oh, and even though Mr Ciolos doesn't blog, this press release was found through blogger Menaru, which proves that nobody reads press releases unless they are somewhere in a blog.

Why Poland agreed to the milk quota regulation in November 2009

You still remember the milk quota dispute we saw in October/ November between the EU member states?

In the summary of EU Council acts of November 2009 (published Monday) I found the following statement by Poland on the Council Regulation (EC) No 1140/2009 that deals with milk quotas and that was adopted by all EU countries (with the UK abstaining) in November:

"Poland decided to withdraw its objection to the proposed document for the sake of all Member States and because of the fact that its adoption is a condition required to launch an emergency package to the amount of EUR 280 billion.

However, it must be stressed that Poland continues to doubt the legitimacy of the proposed new rules for calculating the levy payable after exceeding the national milk quota in the case of Member States applying the milk quota buy-back mechanism. The submitted proposal will lead to a decrease of the milk quota exempt from national aid in those Member States which fully use the production limits granted and, at the same time, administer the national quota buy-back mechanism.

The new rules will openly discriminate against the most active farmers who contribute to the development of market milk production.

In view of the above, Poland finds it essential to maintain the milk quota buy-back mechanism as a facultative activity which should be implemented only after an independent decision of a Member State."

I am not sure that this figured in the news at the time, but it is a proof of the pressure on member states to follow an emerging consensus in the Council, especially under time pressure, that I found worth publishing.

My Twitter coverage of the Ciolos hearing

I have covered the first 90 minutes of the hearing of the designated Commissioner for Agriculture, Dacian Cioloş on Twitter.

My tweets can be found here. EurActive France was tweeting, too.

My impressions:

• Cioloş remained overly general for the whole time, both on goals and on current policies, and he didn't seemed to be briefed on technical details or was ignoring them. He gave slight hints that he is not against GMO in agriculture.

• As a person, he isn't very impressive and I have doubts that he can stand against the agriculture lobby (Update: as I would hope) or defend the EU in WTO negotations (Update: as the lobby might hope).

• But he understands and speaks English and French, although he preferred to speak Romanian most of the time. When attacked, he switched to Romanian.

Not sure he's a good choice.

Update: Update in the text thanks to this remark on Twitter.

Germany, France, and Austria demand interventions in the milk market

In a joint note, Germany, France, and Austria have demanded interventions into the milk market due to low milk prices.

The request was directed to the 2944th AGRICULTURE and FISHERIES Council meeting on Monday, and there was supported by Lithuania, Slovakia, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Poland, Hungary, Belgium, Greece, Italy, Portugual, Ireland, Spain, Latvia and Romania.

They all demanded higher aid for cheese, for skimmed milk powder and for ...school milk consumption.

This looks very much like a populist reaction to the latest milk farmer protests, and I deplore that the member states react on such short sighted pressure, especially in the field of agricultural policy that already gets way to much funds.

According to the Council summary, only the Commission, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom raised doubts and asked for a more "cautious approach".

Welcome back, European Agricultural Union!

A citizens' summary by the European Commission: "EU policy paper - simpler farm policy"

Maybe I just haven't found something like this before, but for me it just felt like the citizen-friendly future has arrived at the European Commission.

I was reading a recent blog post by EU Commissioner Boel (responsible for agriculture and rural development) in which she is describing the Commission's work to reduce administrative burdens under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP):

"I am confident that we can meet our target of reducing the administrative burden arising from the CAP by 25 percent by 2012. But we are not resting on our laurels. There are many more projects in the pipelines. One of these is an IT system that can improve the information flow between Brussels and the Member States. You may wonder what that has to do with simplification. The answer is simple: we firmly believe that better IT systems could reduce the administrative burden on farms by more than €400 million."

Since in the same post Ms Boel promised that the respective report would be easy to read, I went to see it (PDF document).

But more important than the report is the citizens' summary. It starts already with the title: Instead of

COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE COUNCIL AND THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

A simplified CAP for Europe - a success for all

the citizens' summary just titles

EU policy paper – simpler farm policy

And in this summary, everything important is summarised in a limited number of clear sentences without standard EU vocabulary. Fully understandable for every citizens who can read.

And everyone interested in more details can still read the full communication, which - I have to admit - is also very readable and keeps things as simple as possible.

That is exactly the way I want to see EU administration to act: Keep it clear and simple. This is a good day for the EU Commission.

PS.: And because of this nice presentation of the report, I don't even feel obliged to look through all details hoping to find something evil hidden between the lines.

Environmental Council discusses CAP health check [supplemented]

On today's and tomorrow's agenda of the EU Council of Environmental questions, there is one issue concerning the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union.

Under the title "CAP Health Check" - an initiative launched by the Commission in late 2007 (and which seems to have been discussed by many, including Martin at the EESC as well as a broader coalition outside the institutions) - the French EU Council Presidency has issued a document in which it describes further steps to be taken to reform the CAP. Under the initative, several new regulations will be developed, inter alia paving

"the way for increased consideration of environmental aspects in the CAP, in particular with respect to two points:

– the increase in the financial resources of the rural development policy to provide a better
response to the "new challenges" identified by the Commission;
– the inclusion of water management in the cross-compliance criteria for support under the first pillar."

The initiative includes also changes in payment schemes, favouring regional development, but since I am not an expert in CAP policies, I excuse for not trying to explain any details.

It seems as if some of the issues of the CAP reform have already advanced considerably, because in the Presidency document it is laid down that the next Agriculture and Fisheries Council (17-19 November 2008) is expected to bring an agreement between the member states on these issues.

The European Parliament is also expected to vote on the CAP health check on 19 November, the last day of the EU Council meeting. Some media report that the initial proposal by the Commission has been considerably watered down by the EP's agricultural committee.

However, when you read the document, it does not look like a full and comprehensive CAP reform that would be needed in order to change the course of the European Union considerably is on its way.

Everything laid out in the document rather look like adjustments, some technical and some political, but without much vision.

European Union demands more daylight (updated)

From 2011, all newly registered cars have to have an obligatory daylight - to make our streets more secure, as the Commission tells.

Several news sources report about this nice little EU decision. This is why we need the European Union - to demand more daylight.

Daylight is also very important for the agriculture, and as everybody knows, agriculture is in the centre of our Union. Maybe, this decision on cars is a hidden agricultural subsidy, yet another one.

But if you want to read some counterarguments against this decision - please use the opportunity to consult the The Association of Drivers Against Daytime Running Lights (United Kingdom).

This is also what the EU is all about: For every piece of legislation, for every initiative, for every little detail, there is a funny counter-initiative.

I love the European Union, it is my daily bread, my daily absurdity. What would I do without her?!

Update:

For the full story - i.e. the history of the proposal - read the excellent article by EUreferendum (found via Publius).

EU ministers for agriculture agree to terror list (updated)

German news source Spiegel.de reports that during the EU Council meeting on 15 July 2008, the ministers for agriculture agreed on a new terror list.

The item was not for discussion or for vote and was just passed silently by the ministers. I was trying to find the agenda, but since the EU Council document search is very impractical, I was unable to find something useful.

The new list includes, acording to Spiegel.de, the Iranian resistance groups PMOI, for which there are no official proves of actually being a terrorist organisation.

But luckily for all humans affected by the list, it were the ministers for agriculture who decided on the future of their lives...

Update:

Please look into the comments to this article to get the hints to the respective documents. Brussels Blogger informed about the official publication of that list and I could, with some more digging, find the respective draft agenda - and the "A" items (those without discussion) - of the 15 July Council meeting where the decisions were foreseen.