As the debate on the CAP reform battles on between institutions and Member States, BBC journalist, Roger Harrabin has produced a short report which featured on BBC Newsnight. The footage aims to outline to the public the key issues in the CAP reform debate and communicate them in layman’s terms.

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The long debate over greening in this year’s CAP reform is moving towards a climax. This short paper provides an overview of the state of play on the greening in Pillar 1, Pillar 2 and cross-compliance. It reflects on the architecture of the CAP as well as the implications of the different ways in which green elements have been watered down in negotiations, suggestions are made about how the outstanding issues should be resolved if greenwash is to be avoided and a credible CAP put in place.

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A recent news article posted by the European Forum on Nature Conservation and Pastoralism provides an update on the on-going battle for traditional graziers against Member State reclassification of farmland.

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A contentious issue in the negotiations on the future of the CAP is how to implement the proposed new green direct payments to farmers. However, proposals to increase flexibility for Member States will not necessarily be administratively any simpler and may risk weakening environmental outcomes.

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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.

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The European Environmental Bureau is organising a timely conference entitled 'Sealing the Deal on a Greener CAP?' on Wednesday 10 April to exchange views on the latest developments in the Parliament and Council.

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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.

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A decade’s progress in improving the Common Agricultural Policy’s environmental credentials risks being lost if the EP vote to water down the Commission’s ambitious proposals to green the CAP.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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