Case: Policy coherence in general

12-05-2011 Will the CAP towards 2020: meet the food, natural resources and territorial challenges of the future?!

On behalf of the DEVE committee, MEP Arsenis (S&D) wrote an opinion in which he points out the concerns on the negative impact of CAP on developing countries. They regret that the Commissions communication on the CAP towards 2020 does not mention such impacts and calls for the new CAP to include the principle of do no harm to developing countries as a core objective. They call for the post-2013 CAP to eliminate all export subsidies and to decouple direct payments from production, so as to create a level playing field between EU and developing countries agricultural products.

Furthermore, in the opinion comes forward the call to alleviate the accumulation of negative impacts of CAP on developing countries. They call on the EU through its trade and development policies to promote the following practices:
- sustainable farming practices and food sovereignty in developing countries;
- safeguarding food security for LDCs and NET Food Importing Developing Countries;
- eliminating land grabbing;
- securing the property rights of small holders and indigenous farmers;
- ending seed monopolies and dependence on specialised pesticides are essential.

Fair Politics welcomes this opinion by MEP Arsenis as he strives for development in third countries and a level playing field between EU and developing countries agricultural products. Next to this, the safeguarding of property rights of indigenous people, prevent land grabbing etc. are important factors to make development work.

For writing this opinion, Fair Politics grants MEP Arsenis (S&D) with two points in our monitoring system.

On the draft opinion several amendments were written, many were small additions or small changes to make the opinion stronger. Some amendments strongly pointed out the development aspect and call for greater Policy Coherence for Development (PCD).

MEPs Ricardo Cortés Lastra (S&D) and Miguel Angel Martínez Martínez (S&D)  (amendment 8), Åsa Westlund (S&D) (amendment 9), Kriton Arsenis (S&D) (amendment 11), Franziska Keller (Greens/EFA) and Catherine Grèze (Greens/EFA) (amendment 12) and Filip Kaczmarek (EPP) (amendment 49) all wrote amendments pointing out the PCD aspect in the new CAP report.

Next to this, MEPs Franziska Keller and Catherine Grèze amend in amendment 14 and 16 that the European export subsidies seriously hamper the agricultural development of poor countries by generating unfair competition with their local agriculture. They point out that banning export subsidies leaves however an unchanged economic distortion resulting from direct and indirect subsidies. They call on the EU to support developing countries' demands to protect their food production and to protect their population from the potentially destructive effects of cheap imports.

Fair Politics was happy to see that also quite some amendments were written by different MEPs to address the Policy Coherence for Development in the CAP report. Fair Politics monitors all developments in the European Parliament concerning PCD and therefore will grant the MEPs below each with one point in our monitoring system towards the Fair Politician of the Year Award in June.

Monitor fair: S&D(6), Greens/EFA(3), EPP