What will the introduction of environmental measures in Pillar 1 mean for agri-environment schemes in the future? A topic of much debate as part of the CAP reform negotiations, this new report explores the potential impacts of greening Pillar 1 on England’s entry-level agri-environment scheme and how a future scheme could be designed to deliver more for the environment and ensure the long term sustainability of farming.

One of the key elements of the current CAP reform, aimed at protecting existing carbon stocks, so far appears to have been failing to gain support within the European Parliament, for reasons which are unclear.

The special European Council on the MFF ended in deadlock on 23 November with Council negotiations expected to re-convene in the New Year.

The President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, has issued a new negotiating text for the forthcoming MFF in preparation for the forthcoming Council meeting. He proposes further cuts of €75 billion to the Commission proposals, exceeding those recently tabled by the Cypriot Presidency (€50 billion). The implications for rural development are serious.

The negotiations on the EU’s budget for the next seven years – called the Multi-annual Financial Framework (MFF) – are now fully underway. The Cypriot Presidency has just published their attempt to bridge the gap between the Commission’s proposals for a small increase and those that are calling for reductions, most notably the UK. These negotiations and the debates on the reform of the CAP strongly interact because agriculture takes a major share of the EU budget. How this is resolved will have major implications for the environmental performance of EU agriculture.

Recent European Parliament conference entitled “Agroforestry: Trees for a Sustainable European Agriculture” (10 October) brought together an audience of about 80 and several speakers representing scientists, farmers and policy researchers to discuss the potential benefits that agroforestry can deliver.

This IEEP briefing paper written on behalf of the UK Land Use Policy Group (LUPG) explores the issue of double funding in relation to the CAP proposals and ongoing negotiations and considers the implications of any weakening of these rules.

Commissioned by the RSPB, new IEEP report highlights potential opportunities for Member States to deliver more for the environment according to the proposed changes to rural development regulation. The report sets out a series of principles and environmental priorities to help guide Member States in designing their future rural development programmes.

A recently published report on how to improve the sustainable competitiveness and innovation of the EU agricultural sector was commissioned by the European Parliament Research Department in May 2012. Its purposes were threefold. First, to explain the extent to which the instruments of the current CAP contribute towards improving the sustainable competitiveness of the CAP and stimulate innovation. Second, to evaluate the extent to which the proposed reforms of the CAP currently under debate can further support and improve achievement of these goals. Third, to make recommendations for further changes.

On the initiative of the Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Cioloş, and at a mid point in the negotiations on the reform of the CAP, the European Commission hosted a stakeholder conference on 13 July in Brussels, entitled ‘The CAP towards 2020 – taking stock with civil society’. The conference was intended to bring together the expertise and views of civil society to feed into the ongoing CAP reform process as well as an opportunity for the Commission to re-state the rationale behind their reform proposals.

This question is investigated by Defra economists in a recent analytical paper, 'Can biofuels policy work for food security?'

The 18th edition of the Agricultural Outlook was launched on 11 July. The report presents projections for the coming decade on global agricultural production and commodity prices taking into account projected economic growth, population growth, inflation, energy prices and policy implications. For the eighth time, the Outlook has been prepared by the OECD and the FAO together; however, this is the first time it provides an analysis of the environmental implications in their projections, in a supplementary chapter entitled ‘achieving sustainable agricultural productivity growth’.

The European Parliament draft rapporteur reports on the Commission’s legislative proposals were officially released in late May and early June. Following this, Luis Manuel Capoulas Santos instigated and chaired a discussion among expert stakeholders at a high level conference, Shaping the Future of the Common Agricultural Policy, on 20 June.

Two papers on greening, one to the Agriculture Council from Luxembourg and one from the Commission, have outlined some thinking on changes to the Commission’s original proposals to green direct payments. This short update explains briefly the content of the paper as well as the opportunities and risks they present for the environment

On 10-11 May 2012, DG Environment organised a high-level, two-day soil conference in Brussels. Some of the key issues discussed were soil degradation, urban sprawl and food production. These discussions were carried out from a global and EU perspective. The conference was closed by a high-level panel discussion attended by Commissioners Dacian Cioloş and Janez Potočnik and leading representatives of the European Parliament, the Committee of Regions and Copa Cogeca. The second day of the conference in particular attracted the attention of large audiences from national and regional administrations, research circles, environment groups and farmers’ associations across the EU.

After lengthy deliberations, on 19 March, the Agriculture Council agreed its negotiating mandate on the CAP reform package of legislative texts. This agreement, which significantly watered down green elements, provides the Council with their mandate to enter into trialogue discussions with the European Parliament and the Commission.

The unprecedented cuts in the EU’s future spending plans, agreed by Heads of State and Government in early February, have been much in the spotlight. But what are the implications for the policies which shape the longer term sustainability of European society?

‘There is mixed news for the EU’s environment and the green economy from today’s MFF deal’ says David Baldock, Director of the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP).

The results of last week’s vote (23-24 Jan) in the European Parliament’s Committee on Agricultural and Rural Development was disappointing for the environment, with the proposals for greening Pillar 1 significantly weakened, double funding permitted, coupled support increased and extended to a wider set of agricultural sectors and cross compliance weakened and reduced in scope. On the positive side MEPs voted to increase the proportion of Pillar 1 funds that could be transferred to Pillar 2 (rural development) to 15 per cent, although worryingly this was balanced by an increase in the proportion of funds that can be transferred in the opposite direction (up to 10 per cent). They also propose that Member States should be required to spend 25 per cent of their rural development budget on environmental measures. The amendments have been met with a mixed response, with political parties split in their views. Environmental NGOs have reacted with anger at the environmentally backward direction of travel, while farming organisations have welcomed the increased flexibility. It is hoped that some of the decisions taken can be reversed at the plenary session in March.