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Latest from EU Member States

UK: Paterson rattles the bones of a CAP long since past

With the final stages of the CAP reform process getting under way, UK environment secretary Owen Paterson today demonstrated his grasp of the underlying issues under discussion. It would seem that Paterson believes that Ray MacSharry’s or Franz Fischler’s reforms could somehow be undone. “Some Member States have been pressing to take CAP back to the dark days of butter mountains and wine lakes, with costly interventions in the market,” the British minister insisted. “I have resisted this every step of the way. That’s why Germany and the UK were unable to support one of the regulations which manages the EU food and agriculture market,” he asserted. The minister is not for turning, either. Like a former UK prime minister recently interred in the crypt at Westminster, Paterson is happy to make farming sound like an extension of shopping. “All along I have rejected moves that would increase costs for hard pressed consumers. British shoppers should not have to pay twice for the CAP – once through their taxes and again at the supermarket tills.” […]

Latest from EU Member States

Does the Gove fit? Radical Shake up for UK Farming & Food after CAP & Brexit?

UK Ag minister Micheal Gove has claimed Brexit is a golden opportunity to create an independent, public goods focused national agri-food policy. This policy position has been praised by many, from environmentalists to the NFU. However, is he speaking with a forked tongue? And if not, then what might this potentially radical rupture signal for the EU and CAP? […]

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CAPwatch

Analysing CAP expenditure provides a great opportunity for civil society organisations to assess whether CAP will really be, as was promised, greener and fairer. Here on CAPWatch, we will give you the facts and provide our own analysis. So CAPWatch will step behind the basic stats and the spin, and, using our own specially developed metrics, reveal just how fair and green CAP 2014-2020 is.[show-map id=’1′] For more details click on the member stateThe details used here will mainly be ex-post expenses, based on  the financial reports provided by the European Commission and data provided by EuroStat. Expenditures are annually published by the European Union: this gives us the chance to make analyses and comparisons on a quantitative basis. This then allows for the calculation of very simple and useful indicators, such as percentages, monetary values of expenditure per Member State (MS), per hectare, for specific policy objectives etc.) to figure out the way CAP  money is spent on land, per worker*, per value added and per rural development priority. These calculations will highlight the real weight of […]