Tag: MFF

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CAP spending in the next MFF

Last week, the European Parliament secretariat (Policy Department for Structural and Cohesion Policies) presented a briefing authored by Albert Massot and Francois Negre to the AGRI Committee comparing the Commission’s CAP legislative proposals for the period after 2020 with the current regulations. It consists of two documents: a relatively short contextual statement, and an annex containing six ‘Dashboards’ which in a two-column format set out in specific detail how the CAP reform package (2021-2027) proposed by the Commission on 1st June 2018 compares with the current CAP (2014-2020) regulations, topic by topic. It makes a very useful contribution in structuring the debate around the Commission’s CAP proposals.

In this post, I want to pick up on just one issue addressed in the briefing, namely the budgetary framework. In previous posts (here and here), I have tried to establish what the Commission’s MFF proposal made on 2 May 2018 implies for the future CAP budget.… Read the rest

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Another look at the possible Brexit implications for the CAP budget

Preparations within the Commission for its next MFF proposal, which is now expected in May next year, are well under way. Thinking on the shape of the next MFF began in January last year with the Dutch Presidency Conference on preparing for the next MFF. In December 2016 the High Level Group on the Future Finances of the EU produced its final report and recommendations for a reform of the own resources side of the MFF. In June 2017, the Commission produced its Reflections Paper on the Future of EU Finances. This was one of a series of Reflection Papers published by the Commission in the wake of its White Paper on the Future of Europe published in March 2017.
The Reflections Paper provides a coherent account of the challenges that the EU budget is required to address, including those that have recently emerged. In addition to classical areas such as investments in public goods managed at the EU level (including research and major infrastructure), economic and social cohesion and sustainable agriculture, the paper notes the growing importance of managing migration as well as external challenges in security, humanitarian aid and development.… Read the rest

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The budgetary context for the CAP after 2020

Last week I attended the XVth Congress of the European Association of Agricultural Economists which was held in Parma, Italy. With almost 600 contributed papers, poster papers, organised sessions and panels, it was a feast both of stimulating ideas and great food. Over the next few weeks, I hope to highlight a few of the papers which were of interest to me. In this post, I take the opportunity to refer to my own contribution to an organised session on the economics and politics of the CAP after 2020.
This panel discussion also included contributions from Tassos Haniotis (DG AGRI), Jean-Christophe Bureau (AgriParisTech) and Johan Swinnen (University of Leuven). My contribution dealt with the state of play and the process of shaping the CAP post 2020, Haniotis and Bureau discussed some of the substantive issues under discussion, while Swinnen discussed the political economy of a reform agenda, drawing on analytical insights from previous CAP reforms.… Read the rest

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What can we expect following the CAP public consultation?

DG AGRI launched its 12-week public consultation on modernising and simplifying the CAP on 2 February last. The publication of the on-line consultation was accompanied by an inception impact assessment to support the preparation of a Commission Communication on modernising and simplifying the CAP which is expected late this year, possibly in November.

According to the Q&A memorandum prepared by DG AGRI which accompanied these documents, the stakeholder consultation is expected to provide opinion-based information. “It is an opportunity to take into account societal demands in the policy discussions on the future of the CAP and adapt it to better integrate the new political priorities in an inclusive and comprehensive manner.” The impact assessment, on the other hand, proceeds on an evidence basis. “It identifies challenges, outlines objectives, and draws up policy options to achieve them. Impacts of these policy options are then assessed, considering economic, social and environmental dimensions.… Read the rest

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Triggering the next revisions of the CAP

I have long puzzled over the timeline, processes and trigger points that could lead to the next revision of the basic CAP regulations. As long ago as September 2014 I wrote a lengthy post on the prospects for the next CAP reform before even the ink was dry on the 2013 reform. This highlighted the mid-term review of the 2014-2020 Multi-annual Financial Framework (MFF) as a possible trigger point. It also discussed the complications of the parliamentary timetable for concluding a new MFF for the post-2020 period and the implications this might have for a further round of CAP reform.

I returned to this issue in a post in November 2015 in which I asked whether there would be a proposal for a CAP reform in 2017 to coincide with the publication of the Commission proposal for the next MFF? My conclusion was that we were more likely to see a rolling series of proposals for incremental changes in the various basic acts over the period of the Commissioner’s tenure, designed to address specific problems and issues, but without fundamentally changing the structure of the 2013 reform.… Read the rest

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Preparing for the MFF Mid-Term Review

The EU budget is under increasing pressure in the face of both new and unexpected expenditure demands. Already, in the first two years of this Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) period 2014-2020, virtually all of the flexibility instruments which were put in place have been fully utilised, in part to fund the incoming Commission’s flagship project for a European Fund for Strategic Investments, and in part in response to the large number of arrivals of asylum-seekers, refugees and migrants as well as the terrorist attacks in Europe. In total, around €12 billion has so far been mobilised under the various flexibility instruments, leading one commentator to observe that “the EU budget had been flexed to the maximum”.

However, as a briefing note on the MFF Mid-Term Review by the European Parliamentary Research Service points out, “…..most of the adjustments made to the MFF so far do not increase the overall MFF ceilings; they merely shift amounts already allocated and will have to be offset in full against margins in future financial years.… Read the rest

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The 2016 mid-term review of the Multi-annual Financial Framework

Imagine a scenario where UK voters go to the polls later this year to vote on whether to remain in or leave the EU, while at the same time in Brussels a debate is in full swing over whether to increase the ceilings for the 2014-2020 Multi-annnual Financial Framework (MFF), and thus the UK contribution to the EU budget. This seems to be the nightmare scenario behind the story carried by Euractiv earlier this week based on the views of an anonymous EU official and which declared that “the major event in the calendar of the Juncker Commission, the midterm review of the European Union’s 7 year budget, has been effectively cancelled”.

The report goes on to explain:

EU officials are too scared to come up with policy recommendations to recalibrate the €960 billion EU budget until 2020 by mid-summer, as such proposals would most likely coincide with the Brexit referendum expected in June.

… Read the rest
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Impact of the MFF negotiations on the CAP 2013 reform

The CAP 2013 reform was the first negotiated under the ordinary legislative procedure (co-decision) in which both the Parliament and the Council had equal powers. A project undertaken by the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels for the European Parliament’s Policy Department has sought to examine what impact and influence the Parliament had on the CAP 2013 out-turn as a result of co-decision. Did co-decision give the Parliament a greater opportunity to influence the final outcome, who were the key players in shaping the Parliament’s views and what did the Parliament use its influence to achieve?
The final study, when it is published, will throw light on these issues. The team behind the study (of which I was one) also commissioned a series of case studies on specific issues raised in the co-decision process. These case studies are now available on the CEPS website. They include a detailed amendment analysis by Imre Fertð and Attila Kovács of the Council and Parliament amendments to the Commission’s original draft proposals which evaluates the relative effectiveness of the two bodies in carrying their amendments into the final legislation, a detailed study of the role of COMAGRI by Christilla Roederer-Rynning, an analysis of the evolution of the greening debate by Kaley Hart, and an analysis of the European Parliament’s position on market regulation by Alessandro Olper.… Read the rest

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Prospects for the next CAP reform

The newly-elected MEPS are now finding their feet in Brussels and committee memberships have been assigned. Commission President Juncker has allocated portfolios to the Commissioners nominated by member states, and the European Parliament has scheduled its confirmation hearings beginning next Monday 29 September. The hearing for the Commissioner-designate for Agriculture and Rural Development, Phil Hogan, is scheduled for Thursday 2 October.
What will the new Commissioner and the new Parliament mean for future CAP reform? With the implementation of the Ciolos CAP reform not even begun, it might seem presumptuous to turn to thinking about the timetable and prospects for the next CAP reform. Nonetheless, in this post, I discuss the likely timeline and speculate on the possible outcome.
A possible reform timetable?

A number of possible trigger points are already set. The most important of these is the renegotiation of the EU’s Multi-annual Financial Framework (MFF) for the period after 2020 (the duration of this remains to be decided but must be of at least five years).… Read the rest

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Budget impasse creates uncertainty over December farm payments

All eyes have been focused on the US government shutdown from October 1 through 17 after Congress failed to enact appropriations for the fiscal year 2014, and the simultaneous threat of a US default due to the inability to get a political majority to raise the debt ceiling until Congress finally agreed at the last moment yesterday. Less attention has been paid to the warning given by Financial Programming and Budget Commissioner Lewandowski some weeks ago, and repeated by the Director-General of that Directorate at the European Parliament Budget Committee yesterday, that the EU Commission will find itself unable to pay its bills by the middle of November unless additional appropriations are made available to fund the 2013 budget. The inability of the Commission to pay its bills (mainly reimbursements to member states) has of course a much smaller economic impact than the US case, but it is symptomatic of a different type of political gridlock.… Read the rest