Uncertainty is growing as it becomes increasingly clear that European politicians won't agree on the next Common Agricultural Policy and its funding in time for next May's European election.

Budget

Firstly, member states represented at the European Council will not agree on the EU's budget by May as previously hoped.

"We’ve just heard that the European Council has announced the multi-annual financial framework would be tabled in October 2019, following a Council meeting in May to propose its structure," said French MEP Eric Andrieu, one of the European Parliament's three rapporteurs on the next CAP.

"Many were hoping that we would have a budget by the end of this Parliament, which would have helped us move forward – this is now a question mark," MEP Andrieu told the Ag-Press seminar on the CAP beyond 2020 in Brussels this Wednesday.

While some work is not linked to funding, it won't be possible to agree the full CAP for the period 2021-2027 without a budget.

Andrieu warned: "We can discuss a CAP with a steady budget and that’s one scenario, but if we’re talking about the CAP with the cuts as proposed by the Commission it’s a totally different scenario."

The European Commission, which has been pressing governments to agree how much money they will contribute to the budget, officially acknowledged on Tuesday that this would now not happen until next October – with Parliament approval expected "by the end of 2019".

Brexit

A lot depends on British contributions to the EU's budget to be decided by an uncertain Brexit withdrawal agreement. "The UK are not yet out of the EU. Nonetheless we have to plan on the basis that they may go," said European Commissioner for Agriculture Phil Hogan.

CAP regulations

Then the Parliament and the Council need to agree on the final regulations for the next CAP, based on the proposal made by the Commission one year ago. There, too, progress has been slow.

MEP Andrieu said that his committee had received over 6,000 amendments from colleagues last week. His co-rapporteur, Esther Herranz Garcia, said it would be the new year before they are translated.

Meanwhile, governments of member states are trying to agree their own positions. Markus Hopfner, representing the Austrian presidency of the Council, said discussions are ongoing.

We couldn’t imagine a situation where farmers have to do even more with a smaller budget

While all EU countries agree on a new delivery model that will give more flexibility to member states, they are still not convinced that it will achieve administrative simplification, Hopfner warned.

He, too, mentioned the budget and the need for funding to meet increased environmental demands: "We couldn’t imagine a situation where farmers have to do even more with a budget which, at least under the Commission’s proposal, would be smaller than it is now," he said.

Working together

Commissioner Hogan said the three institutions were "working together to try and achieve as much as we can between now and the European elections, and we’ll see how far we can get". Asked whether he would like to see the reform through in the new Commission to be appointed after the election, he said: "I would love to be the commissioner for agriculture again if I’m nominated."

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