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Marek Sawicki
Minister of Agriculture
and Rural Development
Ladies and Gentlemen!
The most important event at the beginning
of autumn was presentation by the European
Commission of the so-called legislative package
regarding changes in the Common Agricultural
Policy after 2013. After the years of discussion,
the time has come to give a first concrete expression
of a future solution.
Unfortunately, the proposals are a disappointment.
I expected, not without reason, an essential
reform of the CAP. Taking into account the present
form of this one of the oldest EU policies, I
expected it to turn into a policy which is developmental
and competitive when compared to
the agriculture of the non-European countries.
This should be a policy which would be able to
respond to growing European and global food
needs over the next decades. And it turned out
that the presented proposals had been subject
more to the rule of maintaining budget
transfers to the Member States than to actual
change in the agricultural policy. Moreover, they
do not include financing new tasks required by
the CAP after its review in 2008.
In particular, I would like to underline
the issue of simplification. Eventually,
all Member States unanimously
obliged the EC to develop the CAP proposals
which would be simple, clear to
beneficiaries and taxpayers, yet these
proposals are very complicated.
They head towards further growth in bureaucracy
and introduce many new elements to
the payments, such as: a necessity to cultivate
three types of crops on a holding – at least 5%
of the area and no more than 70% of the area
each; payment for active farmers only – direct
payments must account for more than 5% of
income when compared to that of the nonagricultural
activity or the minimum activity
determined by the Member State is conducted
on agricultural land forming the holding, upper
payment limits (so-called capping), direct payments
higher for young farmers and an obligation
of greening 30% of the national envelope.
Another disappointment is the fact
that the minor financial adjustments
are not worth much when compared to
the maintained national envelope for
payments which is based on historical
parameters.
The reference yield of cereals or oilseed crops
set 20 years ago and the population of meat
beef x EUR 200 still determine the national
envelopes for direct payments in the Member
States. Maintenance of such financial envelopes
and then a percentage calculation of
compensations for greening (30% of the envelope)
or the young farmer (up to 2% of the envelope),
LFAs (up to 5% of the envelope) results in
an increasing inequality among the countries.
The states with small envelopes, e.g. new Member
States, including the Baltic states, will be
unable to compensate, in a proper way, farmers
for compulsory requirements imposed as part
of greening the CAP. Similarly, it will be difficult
to disburse identical payments to young farmers
in the EU from a small national envelope for
direct payments. There are no proposals guaranteeing
the complete leveling of direct payments
across the EU. By the end of 2019, such
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Autumn 2011