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European Parliament weighs in on health check

On Monday 14 July the European Parliament agriculture committee will discuss its response to the Commission’s legislative proposals for the CAP health check. The committee’s rapporteur is Luis Capoulos Santos, a Portuguese socialist MEP and former Portuguese Minister for Agriculture. His working document, suggests a number of changes to the Commission proposals, notably a hard ceiling of 500,000 euros on CAP payments to individuals, in addition to a ‘progressive modulation’ that would see payments above 100,000 euros top-sliced to provide additional funding for the EU’s farmland conservation and rural policies.

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+++New WTO modalities paper is published+++

Full details at the WTO’s website. WTO Director General Pascal Lamy said:

“These revised texts set the stage for a decisive moment in the Doha round. Ministers and other senior officials will soon arrive for intensive negotiations the week of 21 July. They need negotiating documents which are clear and precise as they consider the complex issues of agriculture and industrial goods trade. These texts go a very long way in that direction. These negotiations have been long and tough but the prize awaiting us should we reach agreement is worth the effort. A deal to open trade in agriculture and goods means more growth, better prospects for development and a more stable and predictable trading system.

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French press for EU summit on CAP

French farm leaders have asked President Sarkozy to organise a Special Summit of EU heads of government on ‘EU ambitions for the agriculture and agri-food sectors.’ Perhaps the word ‘EU’ should be replaced by ‘French’.

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US farmers want out of conservation, environmentalists resist

The current high prices for arable crops mean that farmers in the US and Europe are reconsidering whether putting their land into government-financed conservation schemes is such a good idea financially. The EU is well on the way to releasing all its set aside land back into production, and in the US Congress is considering whether to allow farmers to leave long term conservation contracts without facing any penalties.

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New CAP spending figures show raw deal for new member states

New official figures on how the the €53.5 billion of EU expenditure on the Common Agricultural Policy was distributed in 2007 show just how raw a deal the new member states are getting under Pillar One of the CAP, which still accounts for four fifths of the total CAP budget.

The figures are presented in a novel interactive data visualisation below (you may like to play around with the settings for Bubble Size, Label and Colour.

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EU wrong to get involved in provision of free fruit and vegetables

Yesterday, the Agriculture and Rural Development Commissioner announced an EU-wide scheme to provide free fruit and vegetables to school children between the ages of 6 and 10. The purpose of the scheme is to encourage more healthy eating habits among children as a contribution to the campaign to fight the obesity epidemic which is storing up very large health costs for European countries in the future.

While the objectives of the scheme are entirely laudable and should be supported, I strongly question what business the EU has getting involved in promoting a School Fruit Scheme (although the scheme also covers vegetables, it seems to be referred to as a fruit scheme – vegetables were always the poor relation!).… Read the rest

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Pressure grows to drop EU biofuels targets

Three new reports published this week have called on the EU to drop or severley scale back its biofuels targets. These latest interventiosn by the European Parliament Environment Committee, a study group commissioned by UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and a leading Brussels-based think tank show that the tide has now firmly turned against the EU’s current subsidy-fueled march towards using ever more of Europe’s land to grow fuel for cars instead of food for people.

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A CAP that Delivers for Biodiversity?

The vast majority of expenditure under the CAP continues to be directed to income support and is not explicitly targeted at responding to biodiversity, or other pressing environmental objectives. According to a new IEEP study for the UK Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) the distribution and allocation of CAP funding, and the uses to which it is put to, should be adjusted in order to help meet the EU’s international commitment to halt the loss of biodiversity.

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