Building a Coalition
Very different organizations are promoting CAP reform and many more will join the effort. This is good news but it also poses a problem. If all stakeholders make their own reform proposals, the issues at stake become messy. The media, the public, and politicians become less interested. Governments can cave in to old-style-CAP defenders and present this as the best solution to the multiple conflicts of interests in society. Put simply, uncertainty always favors the status quo.
The challenge for reform promoters is to find common ground on the key issues in order to convey a coherent message. The more stakeholders agree on a common set of proposals, the harder it will be to resist them. The issue should be easily comprehensible to everybody as the struggle between reform, contributing to a better Europe and a healthier environment, and stagnation imposed by special private and national interests.
Beyond this general coordination of positions, cooperation in campaigning can create added value. Surprising partnerships for events or publications – say between business federations and environmental NGOs – may elicit media interest and demonstrate the breadth of support for CAP reform.
Developing an effective reform slogan
The reform slogan should, at the same time, be polarizing and inclusive. On the one hand, it needs to make a claim for a revolution. This will motivate the pro-reform camp and prevent old-style-CAP defenders from usurping the reform discourse by harnessing public good arguments for traditional income-transfer policies. But while the dividing line against old-style-CAP defenders must be clearly established, claims that split reform promoters should be avoided. Reform promoters should even support claims of other reformers that are not essential to themselves. Environmentalists, for instance, may accept that untargeted income support continues as long as agri-environmental payments are substantially increased. However, if they want the business community to endorse their environmental claims, they have to insist on significant cuts in the overall CAP budget – that is, the phase out of income support.
The core message should also be accessible and appealing. The complexity of the CAP and the technocratic language in which it is molded work as a cognitive barrier against stakeholder involvement and public attention. They also constitute an emotional barrier since people who are forced to think in CAP terminology feel less strongly what is at stake in real live. Reform promoters should use a language that is intellectually easy to access and emotionally appealing.
A Common Agricultural Policy for European Public Goods!
A promising slogan could be: A Common Agricultural Policy for European Public Goods!
This slogan
- appeals to a common sense of justice – public money should further the common good.
- is intellectually intuitive – European money should be used for European objectives.
- is engaging and inclusive – the public goods can be vividly described according to each reform promoter’s priorities.
- combines radical reform with a positive message that stresses the objectives of the CAP.
- connects to the Declaration by a Group of Leading Agricultural Economists on CAP reform.