EU agriculture reform not ambitious enough for new 2050 climate target - NGO

The final meeting before the decision on the next funding period for farmers under the EU’s Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) was a disappointment, NGO Germanwatch said in a press release. Member states failed to set a course that would agree with a more ambitious climate target suggested by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week, it said. The discussions in the Agriculture and Fisheries Council meeting were led by German agriculture minister Julia Klöckner who had put mandatory eco-schemes “underpinned by a mandatory minimum budget” on the agenda as well as “capping direct payments” to farmers depending on the size of their operation. While Klöckner said these proposals were more ambitious than those by the European Commission, Germanwatch’s Tobias Reichert criticised that countries had missed another opportunity to anchor working climate policies into the CAP. “Once again there have been negotiations on how the CAP is to be structured over the next seven years - without providing for effective instruments for climate measures such as building up humus in soils or reducing the number of animals,” Reichert said. Germanwatch said that at least 30 percent of the direct payments under the CAP had to be tied to environment and climate measures in the eco-schemes. 

Minister Klöckner said after the meeting that her ministry would prepare another proposal that the 27 agriculture ministers would work on until the next Agriculture and Fisheries Council meeting in October when the member states’ general approach should be finalised before being debated with the European Parliament and the Commission (trilogue).