CAP reform beyond 2013: an idea for a longer view

The common agricultural policy (CAP), one of the most significant budget lines of the EU, has become a major european taboo. As the focal point of most crisis or periods of stagnation in the history of european integration, this policy draws dividing lines in european debates. This can be explained by the extreme diversity of visions of agriculture’s role among member states. Some of them consider agriculture as a declining sector and the CAP as a useless and costly policy. Others depict it as an essential activity and stress the need for a strong common policy.
Recent hunger riots have dramatically reminded us of the essential role of agriculture. It is not only a way to organise our landscape or environment. It is also and primarily a way to feed the planet. We need a strong agricultural production but agriculture is not as other sectors of activity, it needs regulation to produce on a continuous and sufficient basis. We think that reforming and reinforcing the CAP, even more so in a worrying mid-term perspective of increasing agricultural prices, should be a priority. The European Commission unveiled, on 20 November 2007, a Communication including proposals for reforming the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy. The Communication was presented as a preparatory document for the «Health Check» of the current CAP, based on the experience gathered since 2003. The Commission has launched a wide-ranging consultation with stakeholders and contributions from other European Institutions. This has led the Commission to propose modifications to a series of Regulations dealing with the CAP in May 2008. It is expected that the Council will adopt new measures by the end of 2008.

The primary objective of the Health Check is to assess whether the reforms of 2003 and the following years function or not. However, the Health Check should also be seen as an opportunity to initiate discussion on future reform, which should take place before the end of the current financial framework.

Notre Europe has been working on CAP issues since 2005, with the aim of participating in the debate on the future CAP triggered by the Health Check. The purpose of the Task Force, set up by Notre Europe to this effect, is not to discuss the different proposals made by the Commission under the Health Check, but rather to take a broader perspective. The ambition of the Task Force is to reconsider without any taboo the objectives of a European farm policy with a long view; to assess the instruments currently in place and, drawing lessons from the past, to make suggestions on how to design the future CAP due in 2013.
In this paper Jean-Christophe Bureau and Louis-Pascal Mahé propose pathways for reforms. They first define some general guidelines such as: defining targeting instruments on clear objectives; guaranteeing social return for public money and replacing assistance by incentives. Beyond these, they suggest:
• making EU agriculture more competitive, by adapting instruments and regulations to that purpose;
• replacing the current complex and cost burden payment schemes with a simplified and smaller one in which payments are strictly linked to three basic levels of services (basic husbandry of the countryside preserving farming landscapes; territorial services; environmental sensitive measures);
• maintaining public intervention to guarantee a floor price (or “safety net”) restricted to exceptional circumstances, which should be WTO compatible;
• getting an agreement on intellectual property covering Geographical Indications before signing an agreement at the WTO on agriculture;
• sharing financial responsibility between the EU and the Member States according to the principle of subsidiarity and limiting the EU’s domain of competence to the provision of European public goods.

We hope that this report will usefully contribute to the debate on the future of the CAP .