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New EU proposals could see the next CAP budget cut to €329bn, a cut of €79bn or 19% compared to the last budget, leaked documents seen by the Irish Farmers Journal show.
The 2014-20 CAP budget was €408bn.
The new proposals for the CAP come in at €36bn less than the €365bn budget the then Commissioner for Agriculture Phil Hogan proposed in 2018.
Next week, European Council President Charles Michel will table the proposals, which are expected to be close to the final position on the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), the EU budget, between 2021 and 2027.
Under the proposals, the CAP budget will represent 30% of the total budget, the lowest ever share for agriculture. The last budget of €408bn represented 38% of the total EU budget.
Pillars 1 and 2 retained
The next CAP will be delivered under a single programming instrument - the CAP strategic plan - for both Pillar 1 and 2 and 40% of the expenditure is to be dedicated to climate action.
The direct payments pool of money, Pillar 1, will have a fund of €257bn and talks of “new environmental architecture” to deliver “a higher level of environmental and climate ambition”. Pillar 1 is funded by the EU.
Pillar 2, where schemes such as GLAS come from, is reduced to €72.5bn and is targeted at the delivery of “specific climate and environmental public goods”. In other words, it will be programme-specific and not a bolt-on to Pillar 1 as Greening is in the current CAP. Pillar 2 payments are co-funded by national governments and up to 20% of funding can be moved by member states between pillars.
€100,000 limit
Another notable feature of the proposal is a payment limit of €100,000 which will affect only a few farms in Ireland and achieve 90% convergence of payments between EU countries.
This means moving money to the last group of eastern European countries to join the EU.
Also, €7.5bn that would have been CAP money is being taken as a contribution to the just transition fund, the programme that is funding countries’ climate reduction strategies. This includes moves from using coal and, in the case of Ireland, turf as an energy source.
IFA president Tim Cullinan said that the proposals would be a huge blow for Irish farmers and called for it to be rejected by An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar at the European Council meeting next week.
“The Taoiseach must now focus on these EU negotiations and not be distracted by the negotiations to form a new Government.
“This proposal contains a significant cut in the CAP budget and it would be devastating blow for Irish farmers and rural Ireland and must be rejected,” Cullinan said.
At the IFA AGM in January, Cullinan called for An Taoiseach to fight for a bigger CAP budget for Irish farmers.
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