The Portuguese government apparently does not want to raise expectations too high before the next round of negotiations on EU agricultural reform.

After the Portuguese, who will hold the Council Presidency until the end of June, upgraded the last two rounds between the EU Parliament, the Council of Ministers and the Commission from a simple trialogue to a super trialogue and finally in May even to a jumbo trialogue, they are now back on the super -Trialogue arrived.

Hendrik Kafsack

Business correspondent in Brussels.

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    On Thursday and Friday, those involved want to try again to agree on a common line on EU agricultural policy for 2023 to 2027.

    The chances of success are unclear.

    The main point of contention remains how much money is reserved for environmental and climate protection.

    Parliament wants to go much further here than the Member States.

    So it is fitting that the European Court of Auditors presented a report on the “Common Agricultural Policy and Climate Protection” on Monday.

    The verdict is devastating: "The agricultural subsidies do not make agriculture more climate-friendly", summarize the auditors briefly.

    The CO2 emissions in the agricultural sector have not decreased further since 2010 - although the EU has reserved sums in the three-digit billions in agricultural policy for climate protection.

    The member states apply the brakes

    Now the report refers to the years 2014 to 2020, so it could soon be out of date.

    But the auditors see it all the more as a contribution to the dispute over the reorientation of agricultural policy - especially since the last reform in 2013 was proclaimed by those involved as a “green turnaround”.

    Agricultural emissions account for around 10 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions in the EU.

    According to the report by the Court of Auditors, the EU invested more than 100 billion euros in climate protection between 2014 and 2020 in various ways in the agricultural sector.

    That was more than a quarter of the agricultural budget and almost half of the total expenditure earmarked for climate protection.

    Yet emissions from the three main sources in agriculture - livestock, the use of chemical fertilizers, and the use of arable and green areas - have not decreased.

    Livestock farming alone makes up half of this, including the production and import of animal feed, it is even more, the examiners calculate.

    However, the EU does not provide any incentives to reduce the number of livestock.

    On the contrary, it even promotes the sale of animal products.

    “Green” agriculture in practice: many exceptions

    According to the report, emissions from the use of chemical fertilizers even increased between 2010 and 2018. The promotion of organic farming and the cultivation of protein-rich grain crops have not changed anything. The increase in organic farming has apparently often led to conventionally working farmers producing more and thus also using more fertilizer, the report says.

    Methods such as satellite-controlled precision cultivation, which could reduce the use of fertilizers by 8 percent, would not, however, be funded. In addition, the EU is doing too little to promote the restoration of peat areas and permanent grassland. Instead, farmers received money who used drained peat fields. This causes 20 percent of the greenhouse gases from agriculture, although peat areas make up less than 2 percent of the agricultural area, the examiners complain. This applies in particular to Germany.

    According to the Court of Auditors, the “greening” introduced in 2013 did not provide any incentives for effective, climate-friendly cultivation - although actually 30 percent of the direct aid for farmers was linked to the fact that they provide specific environmental services, such as maintaining meadows and pastures on a permanent basis.

    In practice there have been too many exceptions to this.

    The finding agrees with the assessment of most experts.

    As part of the reform that is now being discussed, part of the direct payments is therefore to be linked in future to specific eco-programs or “eco-schemes” offered by the states.

    Precision cultivation could also be part of this.

    The European Parliament wants to reserve 30 percent for this.

    At the last trialogue in May, however, the states went 20 percent too far.

    In the end, the decisive factor will be that the eco programs offered actually bring measurable progress, warns the Court of Auditors. Otherwise the eco-schemes will suffer the same fate as greening. One thing is clear anyway: the influence of agricultural aid on the level of emissions from agriculture is limited. The most important thing is to reduce the number of livestock. And for that, public campaigns to reduce meat consumption could be much more crucial.