Europe must hold its nerve on the forthcoming CAP Health Check and continue to drive through the reforms fundamental to ensuring a vibrant and competitive farming industry here and on the continent, insists the National Farmers’ Union (NFU).
NFU president Peter Kendall, giving the 25th Edith Mary Gayton Memorial Lecture at Reading University on Monday, argued that the CAP has moved dramatically in recent times and that the Health Check offers the opportunity for a refocus of the 2003 reforms.
“The CAP has come a long way and continues to show a lead, with Europe going further than any other trading block in its liberalisation offer at the latest round of WTO negotiations, for example,” he said. “We are also seeing plans to direct unspent money that would have been used in managing markets internally to be used instead for helping agriculture and development in the poorer countries around the world.
“That is not to say that the CAP we have in place is the final, definitive version, and in that regard we were disappointed that the European Commission was not as ambitious as it might have been in advocating full decoupling of all support payments,” added Kendall.
The NFU has three core principles regarding the CAP Health Check: market orientation, commonality and simplification. Kendall called for these to be the key drivers in the Health Check.
“We now find in the current climate of volatile markets some countries backtracking on the removal of coupled support payments and seeking more flexibility on national envelopes. This damages the market within Europe and impacts very much on farmers within the UK,” said Kendall.
He also called on the UK government to take a more constructive approach to the CAP.
“Our government could play a far more effective role in shaping the future direction of the CAP if it did not sometimes give the impression that it would like to see it scrapped,” said Kendall. “The CAP is here to stay, and if we want to see it evolve in a sensible way then the UK Government needs to play its part.”
Negotiations on the CAP Health Check take place next week. Kendall is due to meet Mariann Fischer Boel on Thursday and secretary of state Hilary Benn the following Monday, and is in Brussels next week for the Agriculture Council, and will continue to press for a steady nerve on reform.
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