Newsflash

Dear friends of a sustainable CAP reform and a rural renaissance in EuropeWelcome to the new ARC Newsflash! As decision making and debate on the CAP reform is now shifting to the national level, it is vital that we keep up to date with what ministers and Members of the European Parliament are saying – in Brussels and at home. From now on, our newsletter will be delivered once a month, and contain an overview of developments in Brussels, mini-reports on key meetings, details of forthcoming events, both public and policy-related, and a special feature from the ARC network. Your feedback is welcome to make it as useful as possible for all of you. We are also keen to hear your comments on the new arc2020.eu website launched today!!! You can enter them directly in the open forum (a new space where we will initiate discussions around the CAP reform – your suggestions welcome!) or send them directly to the new ARC Communications team. In my new role as website editor, I now have the […]

European Parliament’s Dess Report adopted, but falls behind expectations On 25 May, the European Parliament’s Committee on Agricultural and Rural Development (COMAGRI), as expected, has adopted a report setting out its views on the CAP towards 2020. The committee found a compromise position on the huge differences between the political groups about the future of European farmers and rural regions and so avoided a false start into it newly-endowed co-decision powers. That is the good news. The bad news is that the message is not sufficiently concrete or ambitious, and does not respond to the expectations of civil society as laid down in our ARC communication which was published in parallel with Commissioner Ciolos’s reform proposals last year. We are missing a clear statement by the Parliament on how the future Common Agricultural Policy will organise the urgently needed transition towards sustainable farming and food systems, with synergies between plant and animal production, good management of biodiversity, soils and water through crop rotation and a serious reduction of non-renewable inputs like fertilisers, pesticides and oil-based […]

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Rural development and the linking of EU Funds The CAP debate in Brussels: An inside view by Michael Dower For the last year, ARC has been calling for the CAP post 2013 to be focused on a Paradigm shift in agriculture and a Rural Renaissance. We urged that the current second pillar of the CAP, which contains the rural development measures, should be succeeded by a true Rural Policy, and that this Policy should have a strong element of local delivery, building upon the LEADER experience but able to draw down funds not only from the CAP but also from the Regional, Social and Fisheries funds of the EU. So, we were delighted when, in August last year, the Commissioners for Agriculture, Regions, Employment and Fisheries wrote a joint letter to the President of the Commission proposing that, from 2014 onwards, there should be a joint strategic framework for the rural, regional, cohesion, social and fisheries funds. In the ARC Communication, published in November 2010, we suggested how this link between the main developmental funds […]

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