Left-wing groups to push for keeping green rules for farmers

MEPs from left-wing groups in the European Parliament will try to make changes to the Commission’s proposal to relax some environmental requirements in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), to be voted on Thursday (25 April).

The European Parliament will vote on Thursday on the EU executive’s proposal to change some of the Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions (GAECs) standards on which CAP payments depend and give member states more flexibility in implementing the policy.

MEPs from the Socialists and Democrats (S&D), the Greens and the Left will push for changes to the so-called “simplification package”, which will be voted on under an urgent procedure and has been condemned by environmental NGOs. 

Among other things, the tabled amendments aim to secure some of the green rules that the Commission proposed to relax and to introduce mandatory capping of direct payments to redirect funds from larger to smaller farms. 

However, a right-wing majority is expected to back the EU executive proposal – with the minor changes introduced by the EU Council – without amendments, making it possible to skip interinstitutional negotiations and swiftly approve the package. 

Meanwhile, a group of left-wing MEPs will try on Tuesday (23 April) to block the proposed changes to the obligation to keep areas of permanent grassland stable (GAEC 1), which are part of the same package but fall under a different legislative procedure. 

This week’s plenary session is the last chance for MEPs to give the green light to the simplification measures before the institutions enter the lame-duck period ahead of the European elections in June.

The package must then have to be formally approved by the Council. If any changes to the text are adopted, EU countries would have to agree to them to prevent the package from being left to the next legislative term. 

Left-wing backlash

The Dutch MEP Mohammed Chahim tabled three amendments on behalf of the S&D group, including the introduction of an environmental impact assessment of the measures, and a mandatory ceiling on direct payments to farmers.

The third amendment by the S&D group concerns the obligation to leave 4% of land fallow (GAEC 8), from which the Commission proposed to exempt all farms. Instead, the Socialists propose that only small farms – in particular those under 20 hectares – should be exempted from this requirement. 

Meanwhile, the Greens and the Left are going further, opposing what they see as a rollback of the CAP’s environmental ambitions.

On 17 April, French MEP Benoît Biteau leaked an opinion from the European Parliament’s legal service on the legal validity of the Commission’s proposal. 

The opinion stated that the proposed changes would go beyond the Commission’s commitment to make only “limited adjustments” to the policy and would prioritise the objective of reducing the administrative burden of the CAP over environmental goals.

However, it found no issue of validity, as argued by environmental NGOs and Green MEPs.

Permanent grassland

In a different delegated regulation the EU executive proposed on 12 March to relax the rules on GAEC 1, giving farmers and national administrations more flexibility in the obligation to keep areas of permanent grassland stable from the 2018 reference year.

But the Green and Left groups, together with several socialist MEPs, are trying to reject the legislative text, blocking the adoption of the changes, claiming they could create distortions between member states and pose environmental risks. 

“The Commission delegated act (…) creates more distortions between EU farmers, undermines the European Climate policy and offers no answer to the real difficulties facing EU farmers, especially economic insecurity,” reads the motion for a resolution presented by the group of MEPs.

[Edited by Angelo Di Mambro and Zoran Radosavljevic]

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