The Commission proposed on the 22 January the new reforms to its contentious CAP, characterised by the single payments based on the size of their farm - not their production levels.
Subsidies will also be linked to farms meeting standards for food safety, environmental protection and animal welfare. Direct payments to big farms will be gradually scaled down from 2007, with the aim of freeing up more money for rural development in the EU’s poorest farming regions.
Cuts will also be made in the fixed prices which the EU guarantees for products including cereals, milk and rice.
On the other side WWF, BirdLife International and Friends of the Earth Europe disagree with the Commission’s proposal and they have urged EU Agriculture Ministers to reject the Commission’s package in favour of a real reform of the Common Agricultural Policy.
The three environmental organisations strongly criticise the proposals stating that "the proposals are a major climb-down from the Commission’s earlier suggestions of a sustainable agricultural policy. Rural development, a policy which most Member States have been publicly supporting over the past three years, has been abandoned".
http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p_action.gettxt=gt&doc=IP/03/99
http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p_action.gettxt=gt&doc=MEMO/03/10
http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p_action.gettxt=gt&doc=MEMO/03/11
