EU Commissioner hits back at Spelman

Mr Ciolos has also made it clear the UK Government has a major struggle on its hands if it intends to persuade Brussels and the rest of Europe to adopt a more radical approach to phasing out direct farm payments.

Speaking at last week’s Oxford Farming Conference, Mrs Spelman said higher global demand for food and higher prices ‘make it possible to reduce subsidies and plan for their abolition’.

She accused Commissioner Ciolos of not going far enough with his initial plans for post-2013 CAP reform, which are based around retaining Pillar 1, which covers direct payments, but linking it to new environmental conditions to make it ‘greener’.

Mrs Spelman said Europe should look to be ‘more ambitious’ in its reform plans by pursuing a substantial shift of funds from Pillar 1 to Pillar 2, which covers rural development programmes, including agri-environment schemes.

Asked about the Defra Secretary’s comments in a press briefing after he had addressed the conference, the Commissioner stressed that he was ‘very confident’ about Mrs Spelman’s negotiating position. He said he understood that she operated in a ‘different culture and environment’ in the UK but believed she was aware that the CAP deal ‘has to be made by the 27 EU Ministers and with the EU Parliament’.

“But regarding ‘more ambition’, I think I am rather ambitious. It depends what she means by ambition,” he said.

“If ambition is to reduce the capacity of the EU farmland policy, it is not my ambition. My ambition is to still have a strong Common Agricultural Policy but one that is more adaptable.”

He argued that Mrs Spelman’s plan to substantially shift funds from Pillar 1 to Pillar risked creating an uneven farm policy across Europe.

“It is important in the common market to have common rules and common instruments. The first pillar is a good instrument for this because it is 100 per cent funded by the European budget,” he said.

“The second pillar is used in order to give member states the flexibility to deal with specific provisions of a region or a particular sector. So if we put too much in the second pillar, that will be lead to a programme of difference between some types of farm and some member states. This is why I think we need both,” he said.

Earlier during his well-received speech, Mr Ciolos had stressed his belief that ‘CAP direct payments should certainly be retained’. While changes needed to be made to ensure they delivered ‘more in terms of public goods’, their ‘income supporting function is a must’, he said.

He added that he wanted his reforms to lay the ground for a new public contract between farmers and society that ‘gives a renewed legitimacy and credibility to the CAP’.

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