The Commission’s legislative proposals for the CAP post 2013 contain two measures to harmonise direct payments per ha across farms: (i) a move to more uniform payments per hectare across member states, and (ii) a move to more uniform payments per hectare within member states by moving from the historical to the regional model of payments. While both measures are prompted by the desire to have a more uniform distribution of payments per hectare across EU farms, it is useful to keep the measures distinct. For that reason, it is helpful to talk about the convergence of payments across member states, and the flattening of payments within a member state.… Read the rest
CAP reform conference December 19th 2011
The Commission in co-operation with the Parliament is organising a conference ‘CAP reform through analytical lenses‘ to provide a forum for discussion on the CAP reform legislative proposals with researchers and scientists. The event will take place during the meeting of the European Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture and Rural development to be held in Brussels on Monday 19 December and will be web-streamed. The agenda for the meeting is here.
This post is written by Alan Matthews… Read the rest
Agreeing the allocation of CAP funds between Member States
The great bulk of EU CAP expenditure (the Heading 2 ‘Preservation and management of natural resources’ in the 2007-2013 Multi-annual Financial Framework) is allocated to member states in the form of national ceilings under Pillar 1 and national breakdowns under Pillar 2. One of the reasons for the success of the Fischler and Health Check reforms was that they did not fundamentally alter the allocation of member state receipts.
Redistribution a central issue in CAP 2020 negotiations
The distribution of CAP funds between states is now a central issue in the CAP negotiations given the commitment to bring about greater convergence in the level of entitlement payments per hectare.… Read the rest
What Durban means for EU agriculture
Agriculture, uniquely, has a dual role in climate change discussions. It faces significant adaptation challenges as global temperatures rise and there is a greater frequency of extreme weather events. But it also has the potential to help mitigate climate change through reducing emissions and removing them through carbon sequestration.
In this post, I ask what the implications of the outcome of the Durban UNFCCC climate conference might be for EU farming and agricultural policy.
Agriculture and EU emission targets – where we stand
Agriculture is included in the accounting for the EU’s Kyoto Protocol emission reduction targets for the period 2008-2012 and in the Climate and Energy Package (CEP) 2020 target of a 20% reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions over the 1990 base year.… Read the rest
Launch of E-learning CAP course
For those interested in learning more about the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy, a new online learning course on the CAP has just been launched by Groupe de Bruges in association with Associazione Alessandro Bartola/Agriregionieuropa and SPERA (Interuniversity Center on Rural, Environmental, Economic Policies) led from the University of Ancona. The course consists of eight modules and participation is free [Disclaimer: I have contributed one of the modules on the CAP in an international context]. Each module consists of one or two powerpoint lessons lasting around 40 minutes, and there are short entry and exit tests to help students assess their knowledge.… Read the rest
Agricultural consequences of the eurozone crisis
The consequences of the decisions at the fateful Brussels summit on 9 December 2011 will take time to assess. Whether leaders did enough to calm the markets and allow eurozone governments to refinance their enormous debts next year at reasonable interest rates will be known relatively quickly. Many commentators feel that financial markets will not be impressed, and that the EU is facing into a prolonged depression in which the break-up of the eurozone is a real possibility.
The significance of the institutional changes implied by the creation of a new inner core of EU member states pledged to achieve greater fiscal integration will only be known over a longer time span.… Read the rest
New Commission study on impacts of Doha Round
The G20 Cannes Summit, despite being side-tracked by the continuing eurozone crisis, did address other issues of importance to the global economy. In the section of its final communiqué on trade, the heads of state reaffirmed their ritualistic commitment to the Doha Round mandate. However, they went on to note that “It is clear that we will not complete the [Doha Development Agenda] if we continue to conduct negotiations as we have in the past.” Instead, they called for “fresh, credible approaches to furthering negotiations, including the issues of concern for Least Developed Countries and, where they can bear fruit, the remaining elements of the DDA mandate” to be pursued in 2012.… Read the rest
Russian WTO accession by end year?
An announcement last week by Karel de Gucht, the EU Trade Commissioner, that the EU and Russia had struck a deal on remaining outstanding bilateral issues in negotiating Russia’s accession to WTO membership raises the prospect that this economic giant could become a WTO member by the end of this year.
Russia and the WTO
Russia first made its application in 1993 so has been negotiating its accession now for 18 years, by far the longest of any accession process by a WTO applicant. This reflects in part the country’s economic size (it is the sixth largest economy in the world on a PPP basis).… Read the rest
Farmers and the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund
A row has broken out over the Commission’s proposal to use the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF) in the next financial perspectives period to help farmers who might be adversely affected by the conclusion of EU trade agreements. According to a report in Europolitics, the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) is opposed to farmers being included in the list of potential beneficiaries of the Fund. The union confederation wants the funds reserved for workers, and argues that farmers should be helped under Pillar 2 of the CAP.
Background
In the new EGF regulation the Commission has proposed that its scope should be extended to provide transitory support to farmers to facilitate their adaptation to a new market situation resulting from the conclusion by the Union of trade agreements affecting agricultural products.… Read the rest
The legislative timeline for CAP reform
The publication of the Commission’s legislative package for CAP reform is merely the starting gun for the EU’s legislative procedure to debate the regulations before they can take effect. The regulations now enter the co-decision procedure involving the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament (EP).
In an article this week in the Irish farming press, Mairead McGuinness set out the timeline as seen from the Parliament’s perspective. Mairead McGuiness is the EPP Group shadow rapporteur for the direct payments report contained within the legislative package, and thus centrally involved in formulating the EP’s position.
According to McGuinness, the current timeline envisages that draft reports will be prepared for consideration by the Agriculture Committee by April next, with a vote in Committee taking place in September on the changes proposed by MEPs.… Read the rest