Category: General posts
25.02.2010
The recent joint position paper by BirdLife and the European Landowners’ Organization (ELO), presented on 27 January 2010, raises the question with whom environmentalists should ally for CAP reform.
Category: General posts
25.02.2010
Many argue that we should first agree on the objectives of the future CAP, then select the most suitable policy instruments, and talk about financing only at the very end. But financing issues cannot be delayed in the political debate - the Commission’s leaked budget review conclusions mention that ‘a larger responsibility of current CAP spending could be assigned to the Member States, or direct aid could be co-financed by national contributions’. This contribution submits four theses on co-financing, that is, the sharing of subsidy costs between the EU and the Member States.
Category: General posts
25.02.2010
It is often believed that subsidies that fall into the WTO’s Green Box are indeed 'green' or otherwise legitimate, and that the Single Farm Payment and the second pillar of the CAP deserve this stamp of approval. That's not true - here is why.
Category: General posts
25.02.2010
Cigarette boxes warn: Smoking kills.
But the EU still subsidizes tobacco plantations. Ana Carricondo from the Sociedad Española de Ornitología traces the weird twists of tobacco support in her country. While some improvements have been made recently, tobacco farmers still receive 4,000€/ha on average.
Category: Studies
22.02.2010
IEEP, 2009
Category: General posts
20.02.2010
Forestry covers almost as much land as agriculture – but only 3% of the CAP budget is earmarked for forests. One would think that this imbalance would make forest owners long-standing critics of the CAP. Not so. For one thing, many forests are owned by the government, and governments won’t lobby against their own policy. More importantly, many forest owners also happen to be farmers, and the more powerful agricultural lobby has managed excessively well to subdue its smaller sibling in this close relationship.
Category: General posts
19.02.2010
What are the effects of agriculture on climate change? And how could the CAP help to mitigate climate change? Ernst-Detlef Schulze, contributor to the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for the IPCC and Lead Researcher of the 'Assessment of the European Terrestrial Carbon Balance', responds to these questions. He argues that greenhouse gas emission trading should be expanded to agriculture.
Category: General posts
19.02.2010
22 member states agreed on the Paris Declaration on December 10, 2009. They include all those that had supported the call for increased dairy support, sponsored by France and Germany this autumn – that is, they excluded the small reform-oriented camp (UK, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands, plus Malta). The document is a concoction of buzz words and stereotypes that shall somehow prepare the emotional ground for the continuation of wasteful agricultural subsidies.
Category: Multimedia
18.01.2010
How does the CAP affect poverty and hunger abroad? Prof. Alan Matthews observes improvements in EU policy, such as the reduction of export subsidies and tariff-free market access for least developed countries. But further steps are necessary if trade is to develop its full potential in the struggle for global food security.