CAP cash threatened by the protection effort | EUROtoday

On Mar 24, 2025

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QUel would be the price range of the longer term PAC after 2027? This is the one query the Commissioner for Agriculture, the Luxembourg Christophe Hansen can not reply. It is nonetheless the one query that’s value. If his imaginative and prescient for agriculture and meals, offered on February 19, makes basic consensus, it’s the budgetary query that worries. Because the EU’s price range just isn’t very extensible and pile up new priorities – protection and safety within the broad sense, digital and improvements -, which might begin giant items of an already weak warmth pump.

“We need a budget that is both substantial and whose architecture can guarantee sustainability in two pillars,” says Annie Genevard, the French Minister of Agriculture and Food Sovereignty. The two pillars are, on the one hand, direct help, on the opposite, rural improvement. Annie Genevard’s precision just isn’t trivial.

Shared concern, unsure funding

The concern is all of the higher for the reason that lengthy -term price range draft on which the Commission works fully restructures the envelopes. The widespread agricultural coverage would thus be drowned in a extra international block of funding (with the cohesion funds), which might then be administered on the nationwide stage. On the one hand, the Commission goals to extra flexibility for the Member States, however the specificity of the CAP as a European coverage fades. All this coincides with the lengthy -standing intention of Germany to renationize agricultural coverage…

Minister Genevard just isn’t alone in worrying. His Austrian counterpart, Norbert Totschnig (confirmed at his submit within the new Austrian authorities), drives the purpose: “The central component is the widespread agricultural coverage. This is why it’s so necessary that the CAP finds sooner or later multi -year monetary framework from 2028 the significance it has at this time. A place additionally shared by Martin Heydon, Irish Minister, based on whom the CAP stays “crucial for the Irish economy, the food system and food security”.

Food safety, European safety pillar

The solely option to defend the PAC’s price range could be to contemplate it as a component of the protection of the previous continent: the enemy just isn’t preventing the empty stomach. The reset of Europe’s resetting plan solely is sensible if the European populations should eat. Food safety constitutes, on this, a basic component of the general safety of Europe.

“It is not a question of choosing between cannons and butter, it is a question of strengthening the defense and the security of Europe, our energy autonomy and our food security,” mentioned Luis Planas Puchades, the Spanish Minister, joined by Annie Genevard and the Finnish minister, Sari Ténah.

The dissonant voice of the Netherlands

In this virtually unanimous live performance in favor of a considerable price range for the CAP, the Netherlands make a dissonant voice heard. Without expressing themselves straight on the PAC price range, the standard Dutch place stays that farmers should draw most of their revenue from the sale of their merchandise, not from European subsidies. The Hague is getting ready, like each seven years, for muscular negotiations with its companions. Already, we hear in The Hague that we must always not ask for more cash for Europe and that the financing of latest priorities must be accomplished by drawing from the CAP and the cohesion funds.

This liberal imaginative and prescient, which means European agriculture much less depending on the taxpayer, comes up towards the place defended by the vast majority of the Member States, in order that direct help stays important within the face of climatic hazards and the vulnerability of the markets.

The fracture on Mercosur persists

Another topic of division between the twenty-seven: the commerce settlement with Mercosur. While Spain pleads for an acceleration of its ratification, France maintains its categorical opposition. “France’s position on Mercosur has not changed,” insists Annie Genevard. It has not advanced as a result of the situations haven’t modified. Or if they’ve advanced, it’s relatively within the sense of hardening. The Minister remembers that this settlement would threaten “four very important sectors, including two breeding sectors”.

Italy has spoken in the identical course, however in additional obscure phrases. Minister Francesco Lollobrigida was absent, represented by Patrizio Giacomo La Pietra, a state subsecretary. “In terms of international trade agreements, our leitmotif must be reciprocity, just said the latter. European agrifood systems should not be disadvantaged on a competitive level or subject to unfair competition from third countries. »»

Conversely, Luis Planas Puchades sees in this agreement “an awesome alternative, strengthened by the present context”, believing that it will make it possible to “diversify our business gross sales to 3rd international locations”. Especially since the trade war with the United States is indeed launched … The other ministers have not launched on the subject of Mercosur.

The shadow of trade tensions with the United States

Donald Trump’s behavior adds, in fact, a layer of uncertainty. The American president could impose 200 % customs duties on the EU on European wines and spirits from April 2. This remains to be confirmed. Backstage discussions are fed between the European Commerce Commissioner, Maros Sefcovic, and the Trump administration.

“We are very involved concerning the actions of the United States,” says Martin Heydon, Irish minister, whose country fears for its whiskey exports. We believe that a close working relationship between the EU and the United States is in the interest of all, and that trade barriers only harm our two peoples. »A transatlantic plea in the desert?

Towards competitive and resilient European agriculture

Beyond budgetary concerns, the ministers welcomed the vision of Commissioner Hansen on the competitiveness and resilience of European agriculture. “Knowledge, innovation, fashionable applied sciences, analysis and improvement, mixed with funding, will probably be decisive for the competitiveness of European agriculture,” said Polish Minister Czesław Siekerski, who chaired the session.

To uncover

The kangaroo of the day

Answer

The renewal of generations can be a serious struggling. “In less than ten years, in France, it is one in two farmer who will retire,” remembers Annie Genevard, stressing the significance of “having a common agricultural policy which guarantees these future young farmers with satisfactory professional practice conditions”.

The Ministers of Agriculture have left the Council constructing with extra questions than solutions. The imaginative and prescient of the longer term is there, however its funding stays unsure. In the approaching months, negotiations on the multi-year post-2017 monetary framework promise to be harsh.

https://www.lepoint.fr/monde/l-argent-de-la-pac-menace-par-l-effort-pour-la-defense-24-03-2025-2585548_24.php