Franz Fischler, the European Union’s (EU) Agriculture Commissioner, is to unveil a series of ambitious reforms for the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which he claims will put the EU in a strong bargaining position to get concessions from other countries in the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) upcoming farm trade talks.
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In the centre of the reform will be a move to end the relationship between farming subsidies and the amount of food produced, and to introduce a single subsidy system based on past income, which would be reduced over time. The aim is to lower the cost of EU farm support programmes, which take up about half of the EU budget.
Other reforms include introducing a farm subsidy inspection system and making direct aid dependent on observing environmental and food safety laws.
The largest farms would also be penalised with a cap of €300,000 (US$295,000) on individual subsidies, and the very smallest farms would be exempt from any cuts.
More criticism for CAP
Vocal defenders of the old style CAP are mainly countries such as Germany, France and Britain, who have large farms. Such criticism for the new reforms says that they favour the countries of Southern Europe, and that they will not cut the overall cost of the CAP, since subsidy reductions will only be ploughed back into paying for environmental improvement and rural development.
Leverage in WTO talks
In an interview with the newspaper Le Figaro, Fischler countered criticism by pointing out that such reform will gain the EU leverage during WTO talks: “We are among those that have the most demands to put forth in the WTO.
“We want movement from our partners on food safety, on the precautionary principle, on designations of origin other than for wine, or also on GMOs. If we want to make our points of view prevail, we must offer something in exchange.”
