Farmers organising 'flash action' in Dublin over EU CAP budget
Farming organisations are to stage a 'flash action' at the EU Commission offices in Dublin on Tuesday warning against plans to strip away the CAP budget in favour of once off funding to be divvied out by member countries.
The Irish Farmers Association (IFA) and Irish Co-operative Organisation Society (ICOS) protest outside EU Commission offices in Dublin at 9:30am will coincide with a flash action organised by COPA COGECA, the largest representative union of more than 22 million European farmers in Brussels.
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The EU Commission is holding a budget conference in Brussels on the day, and the action is timed to happen when the conference is underway.
Rumours in Brussels in recent months suggest the European Commission is planning a major restructuring of the EU budget - one that would consolidate more than 530 programmes into a single, generalised fund.
This would mean the elimination of a dedicated, ring-fenced CAP budget, folding it into broader funding streams managed at national level.
The Commission wants to make changes to the EU budget under the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) mooted to begin in July this year.
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Concerns escalated last week after Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen announced that the Commission's proposal for the post-2027 CAP would be unveiled in mid-July - unusually, at the same time as the overall MFF proposal.
Typically, CAP proposals follow a while after MFF negotiations. The move has further fuelled fears that CAP's protected status is under threat despite Mr Hansen having said he intends to fight for a ring-fenced CAP.
Barry Cowen, Fianna Fáil MEP and former Minister for Agriculture, has labelled the potential dismantling of the CAP's ring-fenced budget a 'grave mistake' and 'unfathomable' - especially at a time when farmers face compounding financial and regulatory pressures. Mr Cowen, on several occasions, has called for a proportionate increase in CAP funding.
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'Scrapping the ring-fenced CAP budget would be a grave mistake. It would gut the strategic foundation of European farming at precisely the moment we need to strengthen it. Confidence in the future of farming would collapse - among young people, families, investors and innovators alike,' explained Mr Cowen.
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'What's being proposed here isn't simplification, it's a centralisation of power, plain and simple. It would place budgetary control in the hands of the Commission President, giving Brussels the ability to reward or withhold funding based on political alignment and mean less transparency, less accountability and less relevance to the realities on the ground.'
Francie Gorman, IFA President will attend the flash action in Brussels in his capacity as vice-president of COPA.
Mr Gorman has warned that all the signs are that the Commission is still 'hell bent' on a single fund structure which, if approved, would be the 'beginning of the end of CAP as we know it'.
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