EU farm aid link to water rules "premature"

2584, 14/07/08

The EU must wait until the water framework directive has been substantially implemented by member states before the law can be added to the list of legislation that farmers must comply with in order to receive payments under the bloc's common agricultural policy (CAP), the EU's agriculture commissioner said on Friday.

Speaking at a sustainable water conference in Zaragoza, Spain, Mariann Fischer Boel was giving further details of proposals tabled by the European commission in May as part of its "health check" of the CAP (EED 20/05/08 http://www.endseuropedaily.com/25451 and EED 20/11/07 http://www.endseuropedaily.com/24326).

"I firmly believe that now is not the right moment to bring the water framework directive [WFD] within the scope of cross-compliance", she said. EU governments have already signalled their opposition to such a move (EED 18/03/08 http://www.endseuropedaily.com/25071). 

National authorities are currently drawing up river basin management programmes under the law, to be ready by the end of next year (EED 23/03/07 http://www.endseuropedaily.com/22891).  "We can't possibly know at this stage to what extent the measures from the programmes will be relevant to farming, or to what extent we will be able to check their implementation effectively", Ms Fischer Boel continued (EED 17/06/08 http://www.endseuropedaily.com/25652).

The commission has proposed revising the cross-compliance rules to include a requirement on farmers to leave buffer strips between agricultural land and watercourses. The proposed criteria would also require authorisation for using water for irrigation in those countries where such procedures exist.

Another proposed change is to reduce the level of direct EU payments to farmers and make more funding dependent on measures to combat climate change, reduce energy and water use and preserve biodiversity.

Ms Fischer Boel acknowledged that this idea was "not universally popular in Spain", where water management policy has long been a nationally-contentious issue and greenhouse gas emissions are further from target levels that any other EU state.  But climate change was "pointing at us like a loaded gun, and farmers are in the line of fire", she said.

Follow-up: European commission http://ec.europa.eu/index_en.htm, tel: +32 2 299111, plus Fischer Boel speech

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/08/388.

See also CAP health check webpages http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/healthcheck/index_en.htm.

ENDS Europe Daily is Europe's leading environmental news service. A free trial is available by clicking on the following link:http://www.endseuropedaily.com/web/helcom.