(12/03/08) Herziening Europees Landbouwbeleid

• 2008-03-12

Het Europees Parlement debatteertover de herziening van het Europees landbouwbeleid na 2013. Kathalijne Buitenweg (GroenLinks) is redelijk tevreden over het voorstel waarbij zij als rapporteur namens de milieucommissie nauw bij betrokken is geweest. Volgens Buitenweg gaat dit voorstel de goede kant op door onder meer productie en subsidies te ontkoppelen. Maar er zal volgens haar in de nabije toekomst nog veel meer moeten gebeuren om tot een duurzame en toekomstbestendige landbouwsector te komen. Zo pleit zij voor een stelsel waarin boeren beloond worden voor prestaties op het gebied van milieu, voedselveiligheid en dierenwelzijn. Op deze manier moet het voor boeren financieel aantrekkelijk worden om in duurzaamheid te investeren.

Bericht van de fractie

Subsidy sclerosis, environmental dysfunction and sustainability amnesia

The Greens/EFA group have strongly criticised the recently leaked drafts of the Commission‘s legislative proposals on the Health Check of the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP), due to be adopted by the Commission in May this year, calling them unambitious and outdated regarding rising challenges. These legislative proposals are in contradiction to the Commission proposals presented late last year which are being discussed today in the EP. Commenting on the debate Friedrich Wilhelm Graefe zu Baringdorf, Green Vice-president of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, said.

"The CAP still shows serious symptoms of subsidy sclerosis, environmental dysfunction and severe loss of memory on the importance of the sustainability goals of the EU. An effective CAP reform therapy needs immediate adjustment of strategies and instruments. The Commission must use its transparency initiative to shift public money where action is needed, by doing more to preserve soil fertility, water and rapidly disappearing biological diversity. It should encourage sustainable farming as well as sustain food quality and security which are increasingly threatened by climate change and social and ecological dumping on the food market.

The Greens also criticise the Commission as it has apparently dropped its intensions to cut direct payments for larger farms through scaled cuts from 100.000€ per year. The Greens have made proposals for a system which would include an incentive for larger farms to create employment through diversification of production. By simply cutting payments but demanding concerned enterprises to prove that they invest in employment in order to support sustainable practices, they could add value to the products by on-farm-processing and direct marketing and therefore create employment.

The so-called transparency-initiative of the Commission has made subsidies public and revealed that 80% of the CAP funds continue to be paid to only 20% of farm enterprises, leaving smaller, work intensive farms with an extremely low income. It is absolutely unacceptable that the most competitive farms with the least employment get most of the cake, some with at least 2000ha of land receive 120.000€ per employed person and others with 50ha receive under 12.000€ per person. The average farm in Europe receives 5.000€ per year.

The Greens however will support the Parliament's opinion on the health check communication, in spite of the fact that it is outdated in light of the leaked Commissions' legislative proposals. We are satisfied that our concerns on climate change, biodiversity loss and water depletion as well as our concept on conditional market access (against social and ecological dumping) are carried by our committee. We also welcome the fact that the Parliament is now questioning the rush into agro-fuels by demanding the end of agro-fuel subsidies. Although there is still much to be discussed about sustainable farming practices and a more radical shift of CAP money from subsidies to sustainable rural development, the Parliament has a much better therapy for the CAP disease than the Commission"