EU Court of Auditors: Green deal halted despite 378 billion CAP
General rejection for the 27 countries in the report published this week assessing the achievement of environmental targets against funding received in the period 2021-27
3' min read
3' min read
Another spread is hovering over Europe and it is not the differential between Italian and German government bonds, but the distance between the environmental ambitions of the new Green Deal and the national implementation plans of the old Common Agricultural Policy after yet another reform. "A gulf" is even defined by the latest report of the European Court of Auditors published this week to assess the achievement of the environmental protection objectives that the 2021-27 CAP has largely entrusted to the member states.
In order to maintain the unity of Europe's first economic policy in the extremely differentiated context represented by the agricultural systems of the 27, and to avert the danger of a progressive renationalisation of the CAP, the last reform largely delegated to the individual partners the choice of the measures on which to focus within a vast menu set at EU level to spend the 378.5 billion euro (Italy about 5 billion a year) guaranteed by Brussels over the entire period, which still represent 31% of the entire EU budget. The EU's budget is still limited to the EU budget, but it is still limited to the EU's own funds.
A criticism, that of the European Court, which can be read in a positive light, given the difficulties that the new environmental constraints (to which one third of the premiums are subject) have caused farms, also in terms of red tape. It is no coincidence, as the report itself reminds us, that these obligations were partly relaxed or removed in the face of the supply crisis triggered by the Russian-Ukrainian conflict: all Member States made use of the exemptions, while some reduced or delayed the application of the 'green measures' required to obtain EU funds.
As was the case, for example, with the compulsory set-aside of 5% of farmland for landscaping or environmental work, when the cereal deficit, aggravated also by logistical difficulties, reached record percentages, especially in Italy. Just to give an order of magnitude, over 50% for maize, 65% for soft wheat and 80% for soya. So it was decided first to suspend and then to remove a measure whose environmental benefits have yet to be demonstrated.
The billions paid by the CAP to European farmers through the two funds intended for direct aid and rural development aim, the Court recalls, not only to ensure an adequate income for producers, food security and livelihoods in rural areas, but also to protect the environment from the damage of the climate crisis, which has direct repercussions on agricultural production, as extreme weather events increasingly demonstrate.
