European Parliament muzzles democratic debate by pushing forward with urgency procedure on the CAP reform
432 MEPs voted in favour of accelerating the European Commission’s deeply flawed proposal aimed at “simplifying” the CAP by removing basic environmental requirements.
The unlawful and antidemocratic proposal lacks the scientific evidence, proper argument and public consultation and fails to justify why or how the removal of environmental requirements will support farmers in the short term. In the long term, if adopted, it will leave farmers even more vulnerable to the impacts of the climate crisis and biodiversity loss [1].
This follows as IFOAM Organics Europe and European Coordination Via Campesina (ECVC) sent a letter [2] to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, stating their frustration of being “consulted but not heard” and emphasising that “the proposed simplification rules will ultimately only exacerbate discontent in the farming community as they neither support farmers in increasing their resilience nor do they address the real issues that farmers face, which is the lack of fair prices for their products and lack of a decent income.”
IFOAM and ECVC were two of only four stakeholders consulted in the whole process, this along with the lack of a risk assessment, illustrates the complete lack of respect for basic EU standards of transparency, public participation and evidence-based decision-making.
The Parliament’s decision to fast-track the vote on such a flawed proposal sidelines democratic debate and hinders proper assessment of a reform that affects 30% of the EU budget.
Faustine Bas-Defossez, EEB’s Director for Nature, Health and Environment, said: “It is shameful that such a large majority of MEPs voted in support of muzzling democratic debate on a proposal that lacks any scientific evidence. If passed the proposed simplification of the CAP will do nothing to support farmers and will in fact make them even more vulnerable to the impact of the climate and biodiversity crises which are the real threats to food security
The Parliament’s decision to fast-track the vote on a proposal that affects 1/3 of the EU budget in incredibly irresponsible. Citizens expect better and will remember this vote when electing their representatives June.”
