{"id":90677,"date":"2018-03-19T17:34:31","date_gmt":"2018-03-19T16:34:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eeb.org\/?p=90677"},"modified":"2018-03-20T17:51:21","modified_gmt":"2018-03-20T16:51:21","slug":"farm-ministers-in-tangle-over-direct-payments-as-eu-financial-watchdog-issues-business-as-usual-warning-on-future-of-farm-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/fr\/farm-ministers-in-tangle-over-direct-payments-as-eu-financial-watchdog-issues-business-as-usual-warning-on-future-of-farm-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"Farm ministers in tangle over direct payments as EU financial watchdog issues \u2018business as usual\u2019 warning on future of farm policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new report<\/a><\/strong> from the European Court of Auditors (ECA) has branded the changes suggested in the Commission\u2019s plans for an overhaul of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) as likely to \u201cbe similar to those supported in the past\u201d.<\/h4>\n

The report was published on the same day as EU farm ministers meeting in Brussels failed to reach agreement on how to reform the EU\u2019s farm direct payment scheme.<\/p>\n

The EEB calls on ministers to take on board the ECA\u2019s recommendations for future farm spending to be accountable and based on relevant, ambitious and verifiable objectives, and based on performance rather than compliance. It also warns that if the Commission is serious about making the CAP greener then so-called voluntary coupled support (VCS) should be abolished as these payments have proved to be environmentally-harmful.<\/p>\n

<\/strong>The EEB is Europe\u2019s largest network of environmental citizens\u2019 organizations with around 140 organisations in more than 30 countries.<\/em>
\n<\/strong>
\n<\/strong>Industrial farming is the main driver of habitat destruction and nature loss in Europe \u2013 with populations of common farmland birds decreasing by 30% and grassland butterflies falling by almost 50% since 1990.<\/p>\n

Yet in a damning indictment of the policy\u2019s environmental impact, the ECA report states that the last attempt to \u2018green\u2019 EU farm policy lacked specific targets for how the \u2018greening\u2019 measure would contribute to protecting the environment and climate. A previous ECA report<\/a><\/strong> from December 2017 also showed that the so-called \u2018greening\u2019 measure did not lead to any significant increase in environmentally-sound farming practices \u2013 despite European governments spending a huge chunk of the EU\u2019s annual budget on the scheme.<\/p>\n

B\u00e9r\u00e9nice Dupeux, EEB Policy Officer for Agriculture<\/strong>, said:<\/p>\n

\u201cPouring such huge amounts of public money into farm policy can only be justified if money is spent on subsidising farm methods that work in harmony with the environment \u2013 not against it. Accountability around how public money is spent is key to ensure that EU countries\u2019 farm budgets are actually working in the interests of the environment, farmers \u2013 and society as a whole. Farm ministers should reject any reform of farm policy that leaves us with the same old \u2018business as usual\u2019.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Last week the European Court of Auditors also issued a damning<\/a> evalua<\/a>ti<\/a>on<\/a> of the \u2018inherent limitations\u2019 of direct payments which stated that the CAP direct payments system is not targeted to farmers in need or the provision of public goods. This backs up another rece<\/a>nt<\/a> evaluation<\/a> from researchers who found that direct payments are failing the environment, society and the economy.<\/p>\n

ENDS<\/strong><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new report from the European Court of Auditors (ECA) has branded the changes suggested in the Commission\u2019s plans for an overhaul of the Common Agricultural [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":63303,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[118,116,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agriculture","category-nature-agriculture","category-news"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/credit-Matthias-Ripp.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90677\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}