European Commission

The Commission plays an influential role in CAP reform, for it develops the legislative proposals that are then negotiated and ratified by the Council and the European Parliament. In addition, it continues to shape the policy process by acting as an intermediary between competing positions and by providing analysis.

Within the Commission, the Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development (DG Agri) is in charge of the CAP. DG Agri has a history of promoting reform: it has championed the transformation of subsidies coupled to production into direct income support (‘decoupling’), the strengthening of the rural development budget (‘modulation’) and the concentration on environmental public goods within rural development (‘new challenges’).

However, it seems that DG Agri will try to limit the scope of the next CAP reform. The preceding Commissioners for agriculture, Franz Fischler and Mariann Fischer-Boel, were convinced that their reform efforts served the CAP and the farmers. First, their reforms legitimized the CAP and thus ensured that money would continue to flow. Second, farmers are actually better off getting direct income support and being free to farm whatever and as much as they want, rather than getting support for production, which forces them to produce in greater quantities, or other products, than would be optimal under free market conditions.

The post-2013 CAP reform will be different on both counts: it will shrink the CAP budget and oblige farmers to deliver public goods, and thus incur costs, in exchange for the subsidies. This is less to the liking of DG Agri, which has grown used to its powerful position within the Commission, based on its outstanding financial resources, and which tends to perceive its role as that of the defender of farm and rural interests. Moreover, the new Commissioner for agriculture, Dacian Ciolos from Romania, upholds rather traditional views on the CAP.

The remaining DGs are less supportive of the CAP but have different interests. DG Environment and DG Climate Action are supportive of the greening of the CAP - but they also support a large CAP budget that can be potentially used for environmental objectives. DG Regional Development might attempt to absorb the rural development aspects of the CAP that are not directly linked to land-use. DG Trade is traditionally opposed to the trade- and competition-distorting effects of the CAP. DG Budget is in charge of preparing the new long-term EU budget framework and generally in favor of shifting money away from the CAP (although the glorious days of Dalia Grybauskaitė as Budget Commissioner are gone). Many other DGs are not directly concerned with the CAP but would be happy to redirect some CAP funds to other uses.