Recommendations for a green and fair CAP reform
On Friday the 26th of March, the so-called “super trilogue” will take place to seek a breakthrough in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) talks. EUROPARC, together with 41 other NGO’s and civil society organizations have send a joint letter to the negotiators to urge them to bring the CAP in line with the EU Green Deal.
What is happening?
The CAP negotiations are complex and have been going on for multiple months now. To achieve a breakthrough in the CAP talks, the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the European Union recently called a joint negotiation meeting – dubbed a super trilogue. Many nature-orientated NGO’s, as well as farmers, have been critical of the current state of the CAP and EUROPARC too believes that it is crucial that there is a better coherence between the CAP and the EU Green Deal.
This is why EUROPARC decided to sign a letter calling for an ambitious, green and fair reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The letter was send out to the negotiators today.
What is needed?
The CAP file is divided into three pieces of legislation, dealing specifically with strategic plans, horizontal governance and common market organisation (CMO) of the EU’s agricultural policy. The European Parliament (EP) is represented by one negotiator for each dossier conducting separate negotiations. The Portuguese presidency aims for a comprehensive and systematic assessment of three regulations that make up the CAP reform.
In the letter, we urge the lead negotiators to implement the following five overarching priorities into the three CAP regulations:
1. Incorporate the principles, objectives and targets of the Green Deal into the CAP to give national Strategic Plans a clear direction from their design all the way to their approval and performance reviews;
2. Fully implement the ‘do no harm’ principle into the CAP through strong environmental and social conditionality and safeguards;
3. Empower farmers and rural actors to adopt climate-, nature-, people-, and animal-friendly farming practices and models through fair and effective CAP support;
4. Adopt adequate instruments to manage and regulate agricultural markets to limit overproduction, which causes waste, price crashes for farmers, and contributes to unsustainable trade, and to increase the fairness and transparency of supply chains;
5. Ensure good governance in the new CAP through strong rules on transparency, accountability of Member States for EU budget spending.
EUROPARC urges that the CAP is in line with the EU Green Deal and Farm to Fork strategy, to ensure good outcomes for nature, and for people.
Protected Areas and Agriculture
Agriculture and nature protection do not need to be at opposite sites of the spectrum. Many Protected Areas within Europe already work closely together with farmers on sustainable agricultural practices. On the 30th of March EUROPARC will take a closer look at the relationship between the agroindustry and Protected Areas in the webinar “Protected Areas and Conventional Agriculture: opportunities and challenges for cooperation”. Join us! You can register for free here.
