30th April 2012

ICSA president Gabriel Gilmartin has welcomed the strong opposition to the drive for a reformed CAP based on a flat rate payment, which was evident at last week’s Council of Ministers meeting in Luxembourg.  Mr Gilmartin describes the proposal put forward by Portugal – that the maximum cut for any individual farmer would be capped at 8% per hectare – as “particularly significant”.  This proposal was supported by Minister Coveney, as well as by Italy.

“The reaction at the Council of Ministers demonstrates that there is no appetite for radical reform or revolution.  It also means that it is premature and inappropriate for knee-jerk calls to go back to the old coupled style payments.”

“What is needed now is for like-minded countries to build on a growing acceptance that the reform proposed by Commissioner Ciolos is too radical.  A CAP that limits the hit to our current active farmers but which retains the concept of full decoupling is possible, and we need to focus our lobbying on such a model.  The ICSA is urging the Minister to continue to build alliances with like-minded countries and work towards a flexible CAP, based on keeping the decoupled model, which has worked well in terms of better prices.”