ECVC welcomes several significant advances in the report on CMO reform presented on Monday 29 June to the European Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture by MEP Dario Nardella. The report finally recognises that market stability and food security must once again become central objectives of the Common Agricultural Policy.
ECVC welcomes several proposals in line with demands it has been making for many years, notably:
- Strengthening safety nets (raising and extending intervention prices, crisis measures, etc.)
- Expanding strategic stockpiling.
- Regulating producer organisations, particularly to prevent abuse and ensure capping for aid.
- Expanding the School Programme.
- Use of the term “pulses” instead of “protein crops” which is crucial for protein self-sufficiency.
- Strengthening the European Observatory on the Agri-Food Chain (AFCO).
These proposals represent a welcome change of direction following several decades during which agricultural markets were largely left to market forces alone, with disastrous consequences (5.9 million farmers lost between 2005 and 2023, corresponding to a 39 per cent drop – Eurostat data).
This said, this report remains insufficient to address the structural crises facing European farmers.
Updating the crisis reference thresholds to 80 per cent of average agricultural production costs represents progress, but it remains merely a threshold for intervention in times of crisis. Small- and medium-sized farmers need prices that cover the full cost of production, in order to enable a planned transition of European food systems.
ECVC therefore calls on MEPs to strengthen the report in order to:
- Ensure that CMO tools effectively guarantee remunerative prices that cover production costs for small- and medium-sized farmers.
- Introduce genuine European supply management mechanisms to stabilise prices.
- Make strategic stockpiling a tool for promoting agroecological approaches, and
- Make triggering crisis management measures faster and more based on objective criteria.
For ECVC, the future CMO must return to its primary purpose: stabilising agricultural markets, guaranteeing fair incomes for producers, ensuring the European Union’s food sovereignty and supporting the agroecological transition.
Contact information
Andoni García Arriola
ES, EUS
ECVC Coordination Committee
+34 636451569
Mathieu Courgeau
FR. EN
European Public Policies Working Group
+3367652287
ECVC Secretariat
press@eurovia.org