The NFU has joined forces with European farming organisations in a bid to fight against what it says are “grossly unfair” EU Common Agricultural Policy proposals.
Negotiators from the European Commission, European Parliament and Agriculture Council are currently discussing proposals to allow member states to transfer up to 15 per cent from their pillar one fund, which is used for direct payments, into pillar two, which funds rural development projects.
However farmers’ representatives claim that the proposals could result in significant reductions to farmers’ direct payments.
The NFU has teamed up with organisations from Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Finland and Denmark to send a joint declaration to negotiators urging them not to give member states unilateral freedom to move away from direct payments.
NFU president Peter Kendall has also been to Brussels this week to meet agriculture commissioner Dacian Ciolos’s advisers.
“The free transfer of money from pillar one to pillar two, which would be at the member state’s discretion, would result in grossly unfair competition between farmers across Europe,” Kendall said. “We could see the UK moving 15 per cent of its pillar one envelope into pillar two while at the same time other member states will be moving money in the other direction.
“To stop this we have joined this coalition to ask for any money transferred from pillar one to pillar two to be match-funded by national co-financing. Only then will governments really be forced to weigh up the value of moving money into pillar two.
“If nothing else the devastating UK winter has proved to us the importance of pillar one payments to farmers. We need the UK government to commit to giving us a level playing field so that we can compete fairly on the single market.”
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