The European Parliament and the Council have reached political agreement for transitional measures for the CAP for 2014 – both for direct payments and rural development. The regulations set out the technical arrangements that will apply for 2014 in advance of the new direct payments regulations coming into force in 2015 and to allow rural development funding to continue in advance of the approval of the new suite of RDPs. These extend the existing rules for one more year, although Member States will also be able to introduce a small number of elements agreed in the recent reform package.

The final political agreement on the CAP reform package hinged on finding common ground on three outstanding MFF related issues; the issue of degressivity, transfers between funds and higher EU cofinancing for rural development in certain areas. The outcome; EU institutions agreed to a mandatory five per cent reduction for payments exceeding €150,000, with an exemption for those Member States using more than five per cent of their national ceiling for the redistributive payment on the first hectares of land; no changes will be made to the provisions for transfers between funds to those agreed by Heads of State in February; and higher EU cofinancing rates for rural development in certain parts of the EU will be permitted.

Negotiations on the reform of the CAP are entering their last stage. The European Parliament is challenging the Council deal concluded in June which settled the MFF (EU spending 2014-2020) but, controversially, included commitments on aspects of the CAP as well. The EP is challenging the legitimacy of this incursion into the CAP, potentially giving rise to a further round of negotiations with the Council which may or may not be prepared to concede changes to the June deal.

Achieving a political agreement on the CAP reform last week was undeniably a huge achievement given both the controversial nature of some of the proposals and that this was the first full reform involving co-decision with the European Parliament as well as 27 Member States. However, recognition of this achievement does not detract from the fact that this is a deeply disappointing reform for the environment.

IEEP press release on the revised Common Agricultural Policy.

The ‘Ecological Focus Areas’ (EFAs), were the boldest and potentially most effective of the three measures for greening Pillar One of the CAP when proposed by the Commission in October 2011. In the recent negotiations involving the Council and European Parliament however they have been at the forefront of what has become a ‘race to the bottom’ with their content being whittled away from several directions. Yet another such dilution has been proposed at this very late stage, with the new CAP within a week of agreement on the present timetable.