With the European Union soon to represent 450 million consumers, which common agricultural policy will best serve an enlarged Europe? "A single CAP that serves a single, united Europe," said the leading crusader of CAP reform EU agriculture commissioner Franz Fischler.
Speaking at the first ever European Parliamentary symposium on agriculture last Thursday, Fischler's upbeat vocabulary revealed his ongoing enthusiasm for CAP reform, notably for the 450 million
"This year has very much been a case of out with the old and in with the new. It's left farm support largely decoupled from production. It's addressed certain market problems. It's left the CAP's second pillar considerably better off. It puts consumer concerns at the fore. It simplifies it and makes it more transparent," he said.
At the event last week Fischler went on to summarise the main thrust of CAP reform.
"By decoupling support from production, and combining the majority of existing support schemes into a single farm payment based on historical references, we have taken major strides towards making the CAP less trade-distorting, less complex, and more market oriented. It spells quality over quantity, less tedious bureaucracy for farmers and a greater degree of transparency for consumers."With the single farm payment subject to cross-compliance, the 'quality pays' principle becomes central to the CAP, he added. A move that arguably takes Europe further along the path of sustainable development.
Reform gives us the chance to increase the pace on the rural development front and modulation is of course the key to reinforcing the rural development budget, Fischler told his colleagues. "It is this mechanism that will enable us to shift some €1.2 billion from market support to rural development each year from 2005 onwards, allowing us to cater more efficiently for the additional services that a modern agricultural policy must provide," he said.
For Fischler, reform has given Europe's market policy 'the opportunity to rise to a more competitive, more market oriented, and more stable' state. "Consequently, part of the reform process included abolishing the intervention system for rye, and making asymmetric price cuts in the dairy sector, to allow production to realign itself with demand, or give farmers the opportunity to diversify into other products for which the market is growing," he commented.
No discussions on farm reform would be complete without a nod to the failed WTO talks in Cancun, Mexico last month.
"Reform gave us a stronger negotiating hand in the WTO - up to a 60 per cent cut in trade distorting domestic support, up to a 45 per cent reduction in export subsidies, and an average reduction in agricultural tariffs of 36 per cent," said Fischler. A point disputed by observers who maintain Europe did not go far enough in opening up trade through CAP reform. Fischler's response? "We already had a string of preferential agreements in place with the developing countries, most notably with the 'Everything But Arms' initiative, but CAP reform was proof again that the EU was committed to making Cancun a success."