Agriculture fair: farmers' future CAP budget worried

Text by: Agnieszka Kumor

The 57th International Agricultural Show is in full swing in Paris until March 1. The agricultural world is worried after the failure of the European summit last week. The 27 have left without being able to agree on a new budget, including in the agricultural component which could be drastically planed.

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They did not find a compromise either on the overall level of the budget or on the distribution of expenditure. Four major issues are concerned: digital, defense, migration, and especially agriculture, what is called the CAP, common agricultural policy . The idea of ​​the European Council is to lower its envelope by 14%, to 329 billion euros over the next seven years.

The agricultural world upwind

Impossible to keep up with such reductions, says Philippe Dubief, a Burgundian cereal producer and president of the Passion Cereals association: “ If we don't have to maintain the budget, this will automatically mean less aid for our farmers. There remains the distribution of funds between the two pillars. And here again we are very worried because this additional contribution which is requested from the States is not necessarily shared today by all . "

For Jérôme Volle, vice-president of the FNSEA , the main French agricultural union, the reduction of the CAP would even be a disaster for tricolor agriculture: " France would lose almost 1 billion euros annually, if ever there were to have a budget cut. For us that means that our country would be in a catastrophic position. It is not a question of income against the environment. The question is that we will have lost the budget. We defend it because we consider that the more we have the budget, the more we will support agriculture both in terms of income, but also in terms of the ability to act on the environment and the ability to comply with European environmental standards. . "

More flexibility between two pillars of the CAP?

The common agricultural policy is based on two pillars. The first concerns direct aid to farms. The second is devoted to rural development. In particular, it aims to improve the competitiveness of agriculture and protect the environment. To calm the debates, the European Council proposed more flexibility between these pillars and more co-financing by the Member States. What the main European federation of agricultural unions strongly opposes. Pekka Pesonen, secretary general of Copa-Cogéca which represents 23 million farmers and 22,000 cooperatives explains it: “ We are not in favor of transfers of payments from the first to the second pillar if these transfers are not accompanied by co-financing from from member states. The problem is that many countries do not have this money. So farmers will lose part of their income, but their loss will not be compensated. In the end, the flexibility between the two pillars does not benefit farmers because most of the time the conditions for compensation are not met. "

Central European countries want equality in direct aid

For the moment, no new date has been set to debate the European budget, and therefore the agricultural component. This worries eight central European countries. Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Romania and Poland signed a joint declaration in Warsaw. They ask that the current CAP budget be maintained and want aid to farmers to converge in the various EU countries. " Faced with climate challenges and common technological constraints, the significant differences in aid between member states are less and less justified ", they point out.

►European budget: the CAP remains an "absolute priority" for Paris

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• France
• Agriculture and Fisheries
• CAP
• European Union

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