Commission tries to spin CAP cuts as a farming win

The European Commission has attempted to spin the scrapping of the standalone CAP budget, the abolition of the current two-pillared CAP structure and slashing of over €91bn from agriculture’s ringfenced funding as a win for farmers.

Last week’s publication of the Commission’s proposals for the 2028-2034 EU budget was met with fierce criticism by MEPs and EU farm ministers alike, as well as a dose of confusion as to how Brussels does not see how its plans amounts to cuts to farmers’ funds.

The current EU budget dedicates €387bn to CAP but the Commission has proposed ringfencing just €300bn for the next CAP – a drop of around 20%.

CAP funds are to be subsumed into a larger €865bn fund covering non-agricultural areas ranging from migration, to cohesion and social policy.

European Commissioner for Agriculture Christophe Hansen stuck to his guns in claiming that: “I think it is not correct to say we are cutting the money that is going to the farmers.”

But MEPs from all political groupings on the European Parliament’s agriculture committee harshly rejected this notion at a meeting last Wednesday.

Commissioner Hansen himself noted this meeting saw emotions “running very high” when he was greeted with a “not so welcoming” reception.

“When it comes to the €300bn versus the €385bn, here we have to say that the €300bn represents the 80% that is ringfenced and not everything that is in the current CAP is actively coming to the farm,” he said, adding that other non-farm income focused CAP funds like LEADER are not accounted for in the €300bn figure.

“You have, for example, the off-farm investment that is a rural street that is renovated that is not going to the pocket of the farmer… what is actually going to the farm is maintained, when you look into the detail of the figures,” he said.

Detail

However, this proposed €300bn in ringfenced funds for farmers equates roughly to what is currently dedicated to funds just covering Pillar 1 farm income support schemes, such as BISS, frontloading, young farmer supports and protein aid.

The new proposals include these schemes as well as Pillar II’s Areas of Natural Constraint (ANC) scheme, agri-environmental schemes and investment aid in the €300bn that is proposed for ringfencing.

A new scheme type termed the “degressive area-based payment” is to “replace a multitude of current schemes” with an outright payment limit of €100,000; a 75% reduction in payments over €75,000; a halving of payment amounts totaling €50,000-€75,000; and cutting by a quarter any payments between €20,000 and €50,000.

“Certain regions in the EU will not like it, but if we have to deal with the same amount of money and you want to better support young farmers, new farmers, small farmers; well, you have to take it from somewhere,” the Commissioner said.