MEPs must reject the European Parliament’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) report in its final vote after a Grand Coalition, led by right-wing EPP, undermined critical measures to support struggling local farmers and the environment. 

By excluding critical voices during the negotiation process and compromising the voting process to deny alternative amendments from being considered, the biggest groups hijacked the outcome of years of work on the CAP. 

The result is a greenwashing of the CAP, at a time when humanity faces an unprecedented climate crisis, and a historical betrayal for our farmers, rural communities, and a threat to workers’ rights and animal welfare. 

When almost 3 million small and medium-sized farms have closed down between 2005 and 2013, and a French farmer committed suicide every two days in 2017 alone, the consequences of EPP’s capitulation to agribusiness cannot pass without a fight. 

MEP Mick Wallace (Independents 4 Change, Ireland) comments:

“From an environmental and biodiversity point of view, this CAP vote has been a disaster.  Any of the positives in the Commission proposal have been significantly weakened.  None of the Farm to Fork and Biodiversity Strategy targets will be given a legal basis in the regulation now, which is what GUE/NGL and the Greens tried to make sure would happen in their amendment.

But the EPP, Renew and S&D compromises will also do nothing to make CAP fairer and more equitable.  I wanted a minimum of 30% of Pillar 1 money to be ring-fenced for the redistributive payment.  The redistributive payment is the best CAP tool we have for delivering a fairer CAP and saving family farms.  It should apply from the first eligible hectares.  The amount per hectare should be at least 100% of the national average amount of direct payments per hectare.   Instead CAP will continue as normal, transfer 80% of the funds to 20% of the farms,” Wallace concluded.

Image credit: Vegan Liftz