French-German Alliance calls for CAP Reform Based on Principles of Sustainability, Solidarity and Justice

Berlin/Paris 16.04.2018

This summary of the Join Statement by German and French organisations was completed by Helen Schulze of ARC2020.

This week kicked off with a joint statement by German and French environmental protection, animal welfare, agriculture, development and consumer protection organisations on the future of the CAP. Coordinated by the Platforme Pour une Autre PAC and Verbände-Plattform zur EU-Agrarpolitik, the alliance addressed their respective ministers of food, agriculture and environmental protection, Stephane Travert, Nicolas Hulot, Julia Klöckner and Svenja Schulze. The alliance expect ministers to work for a fundamental reform of the common policy.

In the EU negotiations around the future CAP, the ministers should advocate for the following:

  1. Funds should be allocated on the principle of ‘public money for public goods’ to farmers for concrete, publicly-supported social and environmental services to produce healthy, high-quality food. Particular attention should be paid to the rebuilding of biodiversity, protection of soil, waterways and air, climate and public health as well as animal welfare. It should include the protection of small farmers and diverse farming landscapes, particularly in overlooked/ benachteiligte areas, maintenance of agricultural and food retail labour force
  2. A fixed budget should be determined at the EU level for each of these goals. Farmers should notice a positive financial effect from this. Farming practices which are particularly thorough in reaching this goals, such as organic agriculture, should be recognised as thus and rewarded accordingly by the CAP.
  3. Individual risk management instruments like insurance should not be funded with public money. Instead more funds should be directed toward advice services for minimizing risks, for example through farm diversification and the adoption of climate, soil, water and biodiversity protection measures, as well as strengthening the role of producers in the food supply chain.
  4. The food and farming sector has been export-oriented until now which is a key cause for the price volatility and consequential income-loss in these sectors. The next CAP needs to address the growing demand for high-quality, healthy and accessible food in the EU as well as ensuring fair international trade which acknowledges and strengthens these high quality food without limiting the right to food and agricultural development of the global South.
  5. Member State Strategic Plans need to be constructed such that EU-wide goals and necessary advances in environment, animal, farmer protection and rural development are achieved. In its legislative proposals, the EC needs to provide concrete social and environmental minimum requirements for all proposals. A goal-oriented indicator-system or controls and sanctions for Member States need to be developed.
  6. Departments for environmental protection and animal welfare, health and wellbeing as well as development politics, need to be coherent across EU, Member State and regional levels. All relevant actors across the economy and civil society should be engaged under a participation principle.

The alliance conclude with a reminder to the ministers that EU agricultural policy has a responsibility. The new CAP needs to reach developmental goals as well as making ambitious progress toward the achievement of the SDGs. Particularly since the departure of the UK from the EU, Germany and France, as key funders, need to stress their joint responsibility toward their fellow EU Member States.  The alliance ask Klöckner and Travert to stand up for a sustainable agricultural policy for the wellbeing of Europeans without negative consequences for the countries of the global south.

To read the full declaration:

In German

In French

To contact the organisers

Plateforme Pour une autre PAC

Koordinatorin: Aurélie CATALLO,

Pour une autre PAC, 47 avenue Pasteur, 93100 Montreuil, France,

Tel.: +33 (0)1 80 89 99 51,

mobil: +33 (0)6 17 40 54 70,

aurelie.catallo@pouruneautrepac.eu

Verbände-Plattform zur EU-Agrarpolitik

Koordinationsteam: Silvia Bender & Christian Rehmer,

BUND/Friends of the Earth Germany, Am Köllnischen Park 1, 10179 Berlin,

Tel.: +49 (0)30 275 86-473, christian.rehmer@bund.net,

Lutz Ribbe, Euronatur, Tel.: 02226-2045, lutz.ribbe@euronatur.org

Ulrich Jasper, AbL, Tel.: 02381-9053171, jasper@abl-ev.de

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About Helene Schulze 31 Articles

Helene is a contributor and coordinator at ARC2020, co-director of the London Freedom Seed Bank and contributor for various other publications concerned with the intersections between food, agriculture and social justice. She recently completed a Masters degree in Environmental Governance at the University of Oxford. There she wrote her thesis on seed sovereignty and biodiversity conservation in the United Kingdom. Her work focuses on agroecology, (urban) food justice, experimental and participatory policymaking and art-science collaborations for expanding the reach and potential of the food movement.