To calm the anger of farmers, a common agricultural policy reviewed and corrected in Brussels

Des colères à apaiser, une PAC révisée. Midi Libre – Michael Esdourrubailh

Une politique agricole commune corrigée dans l’urgence, détricotée, et moins ambitieuse sur le plan écologique.

It is a sort of new common agricultural policy (CAP) which was adopted on Tuesday evening in Brussels by the Ministers of Agriculture of the twenty-seven Member States of the European Union. While 300 tractors rushed into the European district, with loud horns, egg throwing and hay fires. And this new CAP, implemented about a year ago after three years of development, has undergone quite a facelift.

"We listened to our farmers and we took rapid action to address their concerns", acknowledged Tuesday in the evening David Clarinval, Belgian Deputy Prime Minister, in charge of agriculture, quoted by Le Monde.

A "flexibility of part of the CAP"

"This is not a new CAP, but the flexibilisation of part of the CAP" for her part, developed, satisfied, the Hérault resident Irène Tolleret, MEP (she sits in the Renew group with the elected representatives of the presidential majority), also a wine grower in Fontanès.

"We wanted to create a very environmental CAP, with an obligation of means to achieve these environmental objectives. As long as you don't write things that are impossible to do, otherwise you won't be able to do it. With this flexibility, this new CAP will be able to be applied in the reality of the fields and not only in the computers of Brussels" she justified.

Less constraints, more flexibility

Taking the example of fallows: "The 4% of fallows is very good at the national level , but impossible to hold on every farm. It is better to have 8% at the national level, and to be more flexible on each farm".

Indeed, farmers were until then obliged to retain or convert 4% of their land into fallow and non-productive areas (in the form of hedges for example). From now on, they will simply be encouraged to do so. The only constraint: maintaining the existing landscape elements as they are, was noted on Tuesday.

Crop rotation is also no longer compulsory, and farms of less than 10 hectares will be exempt from controls and sanctions if they do not apply their ecological obligations.< /p>

"Our farmers deserve to be listened to"

So many measures, among other corrections, which are in line with the announcements made by the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen on February 7 in Strasbourg. Where she proposed to cancel the project to halve the use of pesticides in the European Union. "Our farmers deserve to be listened to", then declared the head of the European executive before the European Parliament.

In Strasbourg, where MEPs will have to validate, during the plenary from April 22 to 25, the text drawn up on Tuesday in Brussels. We will then be six weeks away from the European elections.