It is not too late to take more account of the EU Green Deal’s Environmental and Climate Policy in the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
This is stated by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in a response letter to the Green Party faction. They believe that the weakened agricultural policy should be completely withdrawn.
Von der Leyen regrets that both the European Parliament and the 27 agriculture ministers have taken weakened positions on several points compared to the Commission’s proposal. On Thursday, the trilogue— the three-party discussions between Parliament, the Commission, and the Council of Ministers—will begin in Brussels to reach a final joint position.
Promotion
Von der Leyen says there are still opportunities for improvement and therefore is considering not withdrawing the Commission proposal. Dutch Eurocommissar Frans Timmermans, however, explicitly keeps that possibility open, as he stated recently in an interview with RTL Nieuws.
Dutch MEP Bas Eickhout regrets that Von der Leyen does not want to withdraw the CAP proposal and start over from scratch. Von der Leyen has pointed out delicately that the proposal was drafted in 2018 by the previous Commission, not her team. She also says that the Green Deal is not an obstacle but a solution…
Eickhout is pleased “that the Commission President agrees with us on the importance of the Green Deal to combat climate change and biodiversity loss. It is good to see that she emphasizes that the Farm to Fork strategy and biodiversity must be embedded in the new CAP,” Eickhout said.
If the environmental and climate goals of the Green Deal (the flagship initiative of the Von der Leyen Commission!) are not met because ‘agriculture’ does not cooperate sufficiently, Timmermans does not rule out withdrawal. A Commission spokesperson stressed that it is not at that point yet.
According to Timmermans, farmers need the Green Deal to become a future-proof sector. He points out ‘that eighty percent of the millions in subsidies go to twenty percent of the farmers. And those aren’t even average farming families but large landowners and agricultural conglomerates.’
The objections from Von der Leyen and Timmermans mainly concern the fact that the new CAP includes a two-year 'trial period.' The center-right and conservative majority in the European Parliament (especially from Eastern European agricultural countries) wants to keep open the possibility to adjust, pause, or reverse measures in the meantime.
Timmermans also strongly opposes more control and implementation being transferred to individual countries (i.e., national agriculture ministries). So Brussels may notice that something is going wrong, but it is up to the countries themselves to decide whether to take action.
The trilogue negotiations will be held in three different subcommittees in the coming weeks. These discussions are held behind closed doors. The agreement is that ‘nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.’ As a result, no interim results can be reported, and it is likely to come down to a ‘take it or leave it’ situation by mid-December.
Unlike previous occasions, the trilogue negotiations are not led by Agriculture Commissioner Wojciechowski but by Timmermans (ENVI-Climate and Environment) and Stella Kyriakides (EFSA-Food Safety). For the Netherlands, only one Dutch member of the AGRI committee is on one of the three negotiation teams: Bert-Jan Ruissen (SGP).
Furthermore, this CAP trilogue is not conducted solely by AGRI members; a rapporteur from the ENVI environment committee also serves as an associated member in the main negotiation delegation. This means that drafting new agricultural policy is no longer a ‘solo act’ of the agriculture committee and the well-oiled European agricultural lobby, but the Green Deal watchdog ENVI can still disrupt things. The ENVI environment committee includes six Dutch members, among them two vice-chairs, Bas Eickhout (GreenLeft) and Anja Hazenkamp (Party for the Animals).