The New Cap Agreement, a Step Backward in the Fight for a Greener Europe?
On the 23rd of October 2020, the European Union ratified the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) agreement which will regulate the next seven years of agricultural practices for EU farmers and EU citizens. The new arrangement has been subject to a variety of criticisms, the harshest coming from Greta Thunberg’s global strike movement Fridays for Future which has recently condemned the new agreement by starting a petition to withdraw it.
Understanding the CAP
To understand what this amendment entails it is important to fully grasp what the CAP is, how significant it has been in the European cooperation process, and how instrumental it can become in the fight against climate change.
The CAP was created in 1962 as a direct product of the Treaty of Rome (1957) and was one of the crucial steps towards the creation of a more united Europe. The main goals around the CAP were economic and agricultural, meaning that it strived to create reasonable living wages for EU farmers, improve agricultural productivity, maintain EU rural areas, improve in the fight against climate change and, finally, to keep the rural economy alive by creating a unified market and common pricing. The CAP is one of the most successful and long-lasting EU partnerships, it takes up a whopping 34% of the EU budget (around 58 billion euros) and it is responsible for providing 6 million EU farmers with income support every year.
So, what is going to change from 2021 onwards?
The new CAP agreement focuses on 9 main objectives, which are the following:
All of these 9 objectives fit into 3 main categories (economic, environmental, and social). These aims are focused on the fight against climate change through the implementation of new farm to fork strategies and the European Green Deal, they also aim to positively impact the European market by providing more benefits for EU farmers, and developing the competitiveness of average-sized farms. However, the most revolutionary and, perhaps, controversial aspect of the new CAP agreement is the way these 9 objectives will be achieved. With its implementation, the EU wants to give Member States greater agency compared to the previous CAP, as a way to improve on efficiency by only adopting measures that fit the needs of each specific member state.
More wiggle-room for Member States
According to Intereconomics, this new policy outline will make the switch to a performance-based framework, meaning that the Member States will be free to set national priorities and will have more wiggle-room in terms of the allocation of funds. Nevertheless, all CAP objectives will remain the same for each European State and all strategic plans will have to be approved by the European Commission before being implemented. You can check out all the CAP objectives by country here. Furthermore, the European Parliament will be able to assess the efficiency of each plan by diluting the proposals into a simple model:
According to the European Union website, another new update concerns the budget. The CAP is subsidized through two funds: The European agricultural guarantee fund (EAGF) who’s main focus is the agricultural market, and the European agricultural fund for rural development (EAFRD); with the new agreement the EAFRD will be additionally funded by Next Generation EU (a new stimulus package) to achieve greater digitalization in rural areas while also accomplishing the goals set by the European Green Deal, MS will also be able to transfer 25% of their CAP allocations between income support and rural development.
Why the controversy?
The disapproval of this new agreement dates as far back as the 20th of March 2019: In an open letter addressing the European Parliament, the AGRI (agricultural affairs) committee called on MEPs to improve the new CAP. The proposal was deemed “woefully inadequate to meet the magnitude of the environmental and social challenges”, the committee explained that many changes had to be made in order to make this deal effective in combatting climate change and improving the lives of EU citizens, what was going to be discussed in parliament was simply “not enough”. Politico explains that the main concerns surrounding the CAP are: firstly, the significant cut in the CAP budget, mainly due to Brexit, and a focus on other issues like migration. The new policy subsidies will be slashed down to only a third of the EU budget, this will largely affect the amount of financial support that EU farmers will be able to receive. The significant cut on CAP funds will also have consequences on farms’ environmental practices, which will be forced to adopt greener measures with less money in return. The EU Observer and the Corporate EU Observatory also report that the EU parliament and, as a result, the agreement, were subject to forceful lobbying by groups like Copa-Cogeca and others, which pushed to maintain the problematic aspects of previous CAP agreements and to hollow-out environmentally friendly programs like Food to Fork. These corporations have notoriously supported and financed polluting farming techniques like the use of pesticides or the erroneous allocation of CAP funds (80% of subsidies go to only 20% of recipients which correspond to the largest landowners in the EU). This Observatory report explains how Copa-Cogeca has often been considered a partner in policymaking and was able to create a backroom deal with EU parliament parties so as to essentially divert the new CAP agreement’s direction into one that would further damage the environment and guarantee corporations stable profits. Another concerning aspect of this relationship is that while Copa-Cogeca is defending its interests it is also inadvertently preserving Europe’s authoritarian regimes which are fueled by farm subsidies.
The activists’ position
The Fridays for Future movement also voiced its concerns regarding the new agreement, not only by creating a petition to withdraw it but by posting a talk with Dr. Guy Pe’er of the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research and the UFZ — Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research who analyzed the topic and the main issues surrounding it. Dr. Pe’er, in his video, explains how the newfound freedom that the Member States have in terms of funding and policy-making could potentially tarnish the efficacy of the agreement, as he puts it: “if you give states more flexibility, they will have more flexibility to do less”. Another key issue is the vagueness of the proposal, the new eco-schemes (voluntary programs that would increase the use of environmentally friendly methods in farming) could work in theory but won’t be efficient if not implemented well. He also adds that these new schemes might include aspects of previous CAP practices such as greening, that have not achieved the desired results. On the other hand, programs that have been proven to work in the transition to a greener form of farming have seen their budgets cut, this is the case for agro-environmental measures (AECM). But probably the biggest point of contention is the fact that the movement believes that the new CAP isn’t compliant with the Paris Agreement.
Although the objectives in the new CAP agreement may seem to go in the right direction theory-wise, the effectiveness of its implementation is still unsure. Many believe that the only way to achieve a greener Europe is to simply withdraw the agreement and start anew. This is probably one of the most impactful EU decisions in recent years, therefore it is also a very vast topic that I could only partly cover, to know more about the new CAP and its effects I strongly suggest reading the articles and reports that are linked in the sources.
Sources
Eu Observer, Backroom deal will make CAP reform a catastrophic failure, https://euobserver.com/opinion/149807
Politico, 5 key elements of the emerging CAP deal, https://www.politico.eu/article/5-key-elements-of-the-emerging-cap-deal/
Euronews, EU agriculture reform pits farmers against environmentalists, https://www.euronews.com/2020/10/23/eu-agriculture-reform-pits-farmers-against-environmentalists-as-cap-vote-looms-large-over-
Politico, 50 shades of green: Europe’s farm reforms explained, https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-europe-farm-reform-common-agricultural-policy-farmers/
Corporate Europe Observatory, CAP VS Farm to Fork, https://corporateeurope.org/en/2020/10/cap-vs-farm-fork#:~:text=While%20the%20reform%20of%20the,Farm%20to%20Fork%20strategy%20of
The Guardian, Greta Thunberg accuses MEPs of surrender on climate and environment, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/21/greta-thunberg-accuses-meps-of-surrender-on-climate-and-environment
European Commission, Future of the common agricultural policy, https://ec.europa.eu/info/food-farming-fisheries/key-policies/common-agricultural-policy/future-cap_it
