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A final urgent call for MEPs to address six key areas in the post-2020 CAP

14 October 2020

In an open letter to the MEPs, the European Coordination Via Campesina (ECVC) has once again urged the European Parliament to prioritise six key areas of the CAP reform which currently fall short of what is needed to achieve the nine objectives of the CAP, the European Green Deal and to create fairer, healthier and more sustainable food systems.

From the very beginning, when the CAP reform was first proposed two years ago, ECVC has advocated for a profound reform of the CAP. Small and medium-scale farming – the most sustainable agricultural models – are in crisis, and this, coupled with the evolution of agriculture and food towards more industrial models, made this reform urgent.

 

The nine objectives proposed in the CAP reform, together with the proposed European Green Deal, and the Farm to Fork and Biodiversity Strategies, confirm in turn the need for an in-depth reform of the CAP.

 

However, the overall positions taken so far by the Parliament and the Council, worsen the already insufficient Commission proposal and move away from these objectives, creating even more inconsistency.

 

There is now clear pressure from those who defend the status quo of the CAP to close the negotiations on the reform as soon as possible. These lobbies and interests of the big players and industrial farming models are afraid of the changes that could be made to the CAP reform as a result of the debate on the Green Deal, the Farm to Fork and Biodiversity strategies. This is further proof that the proposed CAP reform is insufficient in relation to the objectives the EU has set itself in its most recent and emblematic policies.

 

The European Parliament added important improvements to the Commission’s proposal regarding the regulations of the Common Market Organisation. However, its position weakens the already unambitious proposal of the European Commission by, for example, blocking or limiting the instruments which require a better distribution of the aids of the first pillar of the CAP, related to the CAP Strategic Plan Regulations.

 

ECVC therefore calls on MEPs to correct the insufficient measures and inconsistencies in the CAP reform, detailed in the open letter attached but which aim to: cap support to ensure a faire distribution of CAP subsidies and to ensure that small and medium sized farmers can benefit from them; protect sustainable agricultural and food models that are integrated in the preservation of the environment through eco-schemes, promoting farming systems based on organic farming and agro-ecology; to protect human rights through compulsory social conditionality; and to ensure fairer prices for farmers through market regulation. The full letter can be read here.

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