Can the CAP manage without market regulation after 2013?
31 March – 1st April 2010
international Agricultural Workshop
Workshop organized by the Collectif Stratégies Alimentaires (CSA) with support of the Plate-Forme Souveraineté Alimentaire (PFSA)
Auditorium International
International Trade Union House
Boulevard du Roi Albert II, No. 5 / 2
B-1210 Brussels
Contact: Collectif Stratégies Alimentaires (CSA)
Tél.: +32 (0)2412 06 60 ;
www.csa-be.org
Introduction
The European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy was developed in the original thrust of European unification in the period of reconstruction and reunification that followed the Second World War. Food was a major concern, but it was not the only one. Industrial recovery was another, driven by the automotive industry and therefore derived at least some of its momentum from by the expansion of tractor usage on agricultural holdings.
During the same period there was a massive labour force shift from agriculture to automotive and farm-machinery manufacturing, resulting in huge productivity gains in the farm sector. This process was initially flanked by national agricultural policies and later by the Common Agricultural Policy.
Until 1992 - that is to say for a period of some 30 years - the great majority of agricultural policy instruments focussed on regulating the European Community’s internal markets. The following twenty years saw a gradual dismantling of the market regulation instruments and the creation of a system based on direct income support with increasingly decoupled aids, while internal prices aligned themselves with the lowest price offerings on the world market.
Today’s Common Agricultural Policy has taken a battering from many quarters, despite a recent lull in complaints from third country partners. But of course the European Union has yielded to the World Trade Organisation’s dominant rationale in nearly all areas.
Despite this, international markets are more chaotic than ever before, and farmers’ struggle to stay in business is just as arduous. Obesity, unemployment, poverty, farm abandonment and pollution (of air, soil and water) are the order of the day, not to mention the looming uncertainties of climate change, demographics and the growing scarcity of energy resources. The need for ambitious and courageous policy-making is glaringly obvious.
Will 2013 herald a new change of direction? If it does, what type of agricultural policy should the European Union pursue? One based on cross-compliance, as advocated by environmentalists, on food sovereignty, as advocated by third world activists, or on full deregulation with a basic safety net as favoured by the Northern pro-market Liberals ? Or should it be the one championed by the proponents of the second pillar (a melting-pot of aids co financed by the member states) and supported by the European Commission in exchange for its risky policy on the first pillar. To this long string of preferences we could add those stemming from the calculation of national benefits of the agricultural policy, caused by disparities between old and new member states. Whatever the preference, can we be content with a situation where agricultural prices don’t correspond to the real production costs for a majority of farms, and where direct aids payments are become indispensable?
Whatever the case, if we wish to play a role in the debate we are running out of time because a first draft of new legislation has been promised for the second half of 2010 during the EU Belgian presidency, and the Spanish presidency is hoping to draw discussions to a close at the end of May.
The initial objectives of the agricultural policy, those enshrined in the Treaty of Rome, were perpetuated without further discussion through the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty. Can we allow the institutional debate to deprive us of a discussion on the key objectives of agricultural and food policy? A perilous discussion if we realise that Europe’s founding fathers drew lessons from the events of the first half of the twentieth century, particularly the repercussions of the Great Depression of the 1930s.
The big question stems from our recognition of the omnipresence of the market and its power in directing production systems – power greater than that of the different instruments in place. In this situation, is it possible to design an effective agricultural policy which is not based on market regulation?
Programme
08h00-09h00 / Arrival of participants: inscription, badges, coffee
Session 1 / Changes in farm structures and institutional and political relations within the EU. Where do we stand?
09h10-09h30 / If markets are not regulated with a view to fostering sustainable structures (size and number of farms, concentration), then the structures adapt to the market instead. Changes over recent decades and current situation.
Niek Koning, Professor at the University of Wageningen - Holland
09h30-09h50 / The process of building Green Europe and the current institutional and political situation in the European Union
10h30-10h50 / Coffee break
Session 2 / Are the original objectives of the CAP still in keeping with society’s expectations?
Do people in the EU still feel that the objectives of the CAP set out in the EU treaties are justified ? Do the objectives need to be adapted or reinterpreted?
10h50-11h10 / Has a changing CAP safeguarded the viability of family farming?
Yves Somville, Director of service étude de la Fédération Wallonne de l’Agriculture- Belgium
11h10-11h30 / Are self-sufficiency and the availability of food in sufficient quantities and of sufficient quality still important issues for people in the EU?
Jacques Carles, general delegate of Momagri - France
11h30-11h50 / Can increased productivity and technical progress in agriculture help fight climate change and meet new needs of society such as preserving biodiversity and attending to animal welfare?
Samuel Ferret, coordinator of «PAC 2013» project, France
11h50-12h10 / Is the objective of stabilising markets still relevant?
Jean-François Sneessens, professor at the agronomic science faculty of the Catholic University of Louvain, secretary of the Belgian Confederation of sugar producers(CBB) - Belgium
12h10-13h00 / Discussion
13h00-14h00 / Lunch
Session 3 / What kind of CAP will the EU institutions agree on ?
14h00-14h20 / Presentation of the EU agenda and the different currents and balances within the European Parliament
Hannes Lorenzen, EFA advisor, European Parliament
14h20-14h40 / What role can the Belgian presidency play in reinforcing instruments for regulation in the post 2013 CAP?
José Renard, General inspector of European policies and international agreements department, DGA, Wallonia - Belgium
14h40-15h20 / Discussion
15h20-15h40 / Coffee break
Session 4 / Is it possible to achieve the objectives of the CAP without market regulation ?
15h40-17h00 / Debate with civil society - Panel
Can the CAP’s objectives be achieved without market regulation? (About structures, price levels, food sovereignty, primacy of food over biofuels, protecting the environment, etc.)
1st avril What combination of instruments to regulate agricultural markets and income-related and other forms of aids are necessary to achieve the CAP’s objectives ?
08h30-09h00 / Arrival of participants, coffee
Session 1 / The need to return to regulating agri-food markets
09h10-09h30 / Definitions, objectives and instruments
Jean-François Sneessens, professor at the agronomic science faculty of the Catholic University of Louvain, secretary of the Belgian Confederation of sugar producers(CBB), Belgium
09h30-09h50 / Internal market management and constraints due to the WTO
Marc Rosiers, Advisor of the Board of Directors at Boerenbond - Belgium
09h50-10h30 / Discussion
10h30-10h50 / Coffee break
Session 2 / Regulation and international markets
How can a better balance be achieved on international markets ?
10h50-11h10 / Stocks and cooperation on international markets
Sophia Murphy, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP –USA)
11h10-11h30 / Exports and cooperation on international markets
Tom Lines, freelance consultant in international agricultural markets - UK
11h30-12h15 / Discussion
Session 3 / How a reorientation of CAP instruments would affect the CAP budget
12h15-12h35 / The budgetary effects of the cost of direct aids and the cost of regulation (intervention, stocks, quotas, countercyclical compensatory aids, etc.)
12h35-13h00 / Discussion
13h00-14h00 / Lunch
Session 4 / Direct aids and the new instruments
14h00-14h20 / Modulation, distribution, capping, transmission, conditionalities, etc. all raise questions about the long-term justification of direct aids
14h20-14h40 / Are direct aids sure to be compatible with the Agreement on Agriculture ? Is there any danger of their being challenged through a panel (subsidising of inputs, cross subsidization)? Would they be neutral in their effects on the exporting capacity of the EU?
Jacques Berthelot, Economist - France
14h40-15h00 / The new tools proposed by the Commission (futures markets, income insurance, production under contract, etc
Jean-Marc Boussard, Economist, INRA – France
15h00-15h40 / Discussion
15h40-16h00 / Coffee break
Conclusion / Aren’t regulation and the recoupling of income-related aids the instruments for the post 2013 CAP ?
16h00-17h15 / Discussion - Panel