At an inter-institutional event on 23 January 2012 in Brussels, the Commission marked the beginning of a year long communication campaign, CAP@50, to celebrate 50 years of CAP in EU agriculture. The CAP@50 campaign aims to bring together all actors in EU agriculture, with past and current stakeholders invited to participate in this ‘partnership between Europe and farmers’. At the inauguration event, Agriculture Commissioner, Dacian Cioloş, noted in particular how the CAP has evolved since 1962 to accommodate new concerns as they have emerged, such as climate change and the sustainable use of natural resources.

The Danish Presidency of the EU began on 1 January 2012 outlining four principal themes for the forthcoming six months: 'A responsible Europe; a dynamic Europe; a green Europe; and a safe Europe’. In terms of the CAP reform discussions, the Danish EU Presidency and the Danish Minister for Food, Agriculture and Fisheries, Mette Gjerskov, have stressed the need for both a green and market-oriented CAP.

At the Environment Council on 19 December 2011, the EU Environment Ministers decided to omit certain details concerning the third target which outlines the role of European agriculture in meeting the EU 2020 biodiversity targets. This came following strong opposition from several Member States led by the German Environment Minister, Norbert Rӧttgen, who claimed that this drafted text was too closely linked to talks on the future CAP and might falsely pre-empt the ongoing negotiations.

The leaked CAP proposals have sparked initial reactions by a number of policy stakeholders.

The Commission published its Legal Proposals for the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) after 2013 on 12 October 2011. This is the first time that decisions on CAP reform have involved the European Parliament as well as the European Council under the ordinary legislative procedure. As such there is considerable uncertainty as to how long the process of negotiation and reaching agreement will take.

Today’s proposals from the Commission on the future CAP could have represented a major step towards improved environmental management across the EU, but in practice they leave major doubts over how much really will be delivered. Bold ambitions to green the CAP have become diluted by a focus on increasing the legitimacy of direct payments to farmers - at the expense of measures capable of maximising the delivery of environmental public goods. One of the reasons for this is that the new green payments under Pillar 1 have to be applicable in all parts of the EU and paid annually. This creates real challenges for sustaining substantive environmental improvements over time.

Debate on the forthcoming draft CAP proposals from the Commission has warmed up rapidly with the end of the summer break. Views on how various leaked proposals would impact on farming and the environment are being put forward with some urgency. The potential environmental benefits to be had from the proposal to allocate 30 per cent of the future Pillar 1 direct payments to support ‘green’ practices has been recognised. However, the degree to which it could deliver successfully for the environment depends on a variety of issues that have been highlighted in a new paper drawn up by BirdLife International. This has been produced to coincide with the Commission’s Inter-Service Consultation on Commissioner Ciolos’ CAP reform proposals, expected to occur in early September.

The Slow Food International Headquarters in Bra, Italy, are conducting a research project that looks at the issues facing young food producers in European countries.

The UK House of Lords select committee inquiry into Innovation in EU Agriculture was published on 7 July 2011. The aim of the inquiry was to establish how innovation in EU agriculture can be encouraged in relation to the EU’s new Strategy for Growth and Jobs, Europe 2020, and in the context of new challenges such as climate change, water scarcity and the need to encourage increased production and competitiveness in a sustainable way.

As a contribution to the debate on the design of the future CAP, IEEP has produced a paper that sets out a series of conditions that the European Commission’s proposals for ‘greening’ Pillar 1 need to meet if a substantive ‘greening’ is to be achieved in practice in order to deliver their objective of improving environmental outcomes across most of the EU farmed landscape.

The Commission College debated for a long day before agreeing their proposals for the next Multi-Annual Financial Framework (MFF) late on Wednesday evening. The CAP (€372 billion) remains a sizeable element of the Budget but now accounts for a fractionally smaller share of the overall MFF cake than the Cohesion Policy (€376 billion). The two Pillars remain and the basic structure of the CAP is not radically altered although the formal objectives now reflect the priorities of Europe 2020 much more explicitly. Indeed promoting resource efficiency has pride of place in the new objectives along with 'smart, sustainable and inclusive growth'.

In the run up to the announcement of the Commission’s proposals on the EU budget for 2014-2020, rumours abound that a large slice of Pillar 2 of the CAP, essential for delivering environmental management throughout the EU-27, may be sacrificed to avoid significant cuts to Pillar 1 direct payments to farmers.

On 4 May, the European Commission published its proposals for a new Biodiversity Strategy for 2011. The strategy places particular emphasis on the important role of the agricultural sector in ‘helping halt the loss of biodiversity in the EU by 2020, and protecting, valuing and restoring EU biodiversity and ecosystem services by 2050’.

A Mercosur trade agreement in relation to agriculture has the potential to have significant knock-on impacts on the environment. With talks expected to conclude by July 2011, there are significant concerns being raised about the impact, not only on the EU’s agricultural sector, but also what this might mean environmentally.

On 8 March 2011, the Commission published a Communication entitled A Roadmap for moving to a competitive low carbon economy in 2050 as a key deliverable under the so-called Europe 2020 Resource Efficiency Flagship. The Roadmap sets out the milestones to achieving 80 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. It provides an overview of the pathways for key sectors, including agriculture and forestry, and indicates the percentage reductions from 1990 levels that would have to be achieved per sector by 2030 and 2050 respectively. For the agriculture sector specifically, the Commission’s analysis shows that by 2050 the sector could reduce non-CO2 emissions by between 42 and 49 per cent, compared to 1990.

The Danish Presidency of the EU began on 1 January 2012 outlining four principal themes for the forthcoming six months: 'A responsible Europe; a dynamic Europe; a green Europe; and a safe Europe’. In terms of the CAP reform discussions, the Danish EU Presidency and the Danish Minister for Food, Agriculture and Fisheries, Mette Gjerskov, have stressed the need for both a green and market-oriented CAP.

The Commission published its Legal Proposals for the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) after 2013 on 12 October 2011. This is the first time that decisions on CAP reform have involved the European Parliament as well as the European Council under the ordinary legislative procedure. As such there is considerable uncertainty as to how long the process of negotiation and reaching agreement will take.

Today’s proposals from the Commission on the future CAP could have represented a major step towards improved environmental management across the EU, but in practice they leave major doubts over how much really will be delivered. Bold ambitions to green the CAP have become diluted by a focus on increasing the legitimacy of direct payments to farmers - at the expense of measures capable of maximising the delivery of environmental public goods. One of the reasons for this is that the new green payments under Pillar 1 have to be applicable in all parts of the EU and paid annually. This creates real challenges for sustaining substantive environmental improvements over time.

The leaked CAP proposals have sparked initial reactions by a number of policy stakeholders.