EU sets sights on a simpler CAP

Phasing out milk quotas and calling time on set-aside are just two of the ideas being mooted in Brussels as ways of simplifying the CAP.

At a special two-day conference earlier this week, EU farm commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel said the CAP had a “deserved reputation” for complexity.

“That is why it is one of my top priorities to simplify it. This will make life easier for farmers, allowing them to get out of their offices and into the fields.”

Cutting red tape was a major priority of the EU Commission and agriculture had to play its part.

The upcoming “health check” of the CAP in 2008 provided a perfect opportunity to make the policy simpler, Mrs Fischer Boel told the conference.

“Set-aside is a good example of the sort of measure I am talking about,” she said.

“Paying farmers to leave land fallow was logical when farmers received subsidies based on production. It is much less logical in the post-reform era. To abolish set-aside would lift a heavy administrative burden.”

The commissioner also called for an early debate about the future of milk quotas. “If quotas were to go, this would be an example of political simplification in action.”

Any immediate removal of milk quotas is out of the question, however, as the CAP reform agreement of 2003 guaranteed their continuation until 2014/15. It is understood that EU member states are split on the issue.

Other areas earmarked for simplification include the rules governing cross-compliance and the partial decoupling of certain farm subsidies.

Cross-compliance was a key element in ensuring taxpayers’ money was being wisely spent, said Mrs Fischer Boel. “But I do believe that it can be made less burdensome.”

Similarly, a move towards total decoupling of all CAP payments would be better for farmers and easier to manage, she said.