BirdLife International have launched a new critical report on the EU’s Agricultural Policy. The report, ‘Through the green smokescreen. How is CAP cross compliance delivering for biodiversity?’ analyses cross compliance, the system of rules attached to the receipt of the bulk of EU CAP subsidies (amounting to €31 billion each year). It underlines the need for fundamental reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for the post-2013 period.

Cross compliance is a set of rules, including environmental standards, which beneficiaries of CAP payments are required to respect. Despite representing an important improvement of the Common Agricultural Policy and despite some steps in the right direction, cross compliance is still far from concretely supporting biodiversity protection.

The report highlights a number of structural weaknesses affecting the current system of cross compliance and the Single Payment Scheme, which prevent these instruments from delivering for biodiversity and the environment. BirdLife’s analysis unveils a lack of clear policy objectives, targets and mechanisms to monitor and evaluate the results, therefore concluding that this policy is not in line with the principles of efficiency and effectiveness that must apply to EU budget spending.

The report highlights how environmental rules are often partially implemented, inconsistent and weakly enforced. On the other hand, rules on registration and identification of livestock are being strictly enforced and place a disproportionate burden on extensive livestock systems. These systems, which are crucial for biodiversity, often receive lower subsidies than intensive farms. A similarly inappropriate approach has been taken for standards on preventing scrub encroachment on agricultural land, forcing farmers in Bulgaria, Cyprus and Latvia to damage habitats protected under EU law.

The study calls for a profound reform of the CAP, realigning the whole policy to the principles of rural development policy, which currently represents the best model to reward biodiversity conservation and the delivery of other public goods.