Three years after the EU’s executive presented its legislative proposals on the post-2020 CAP, representatives from the Parliament, Council and Commission sealed after intense discussions a milestone deal on EU’s key agriculture policy.
CEJA welcomes negotiators’ decision to increase young farmers’ support, setting a minimum of 3% of national envelopes for direct payments to finance the Complementary Income Support to Young Farmers (CISYF), installation aid and investment support targeted at young farmers with a weighting factor of 50%. This important decision constitutes a major step towards providing young farmers with adequate tools to further develop their farming activities while benefitting better living conditions.
CEJA President Samuel Masse reacting to the provisional agreement said: “Today is an important day for European young farmers but is also the starting point for meeting their ambitions. With this new CAP, Member States have to acknowledge that the generational renewal objective is not merely an objective among other targets, it is a cross-cutting and powerful leverage to achieve EU’s ambitions on the fronts of sustainability, economic competitiveness, climate action and social inclusion”.
Therefore, it is crucial that Member States align within their national strategic plan all instruments at their disposal to enable the achievement of the CAP generational renewal objective. They must also strive to ensure coherence and consistency between EU guidelines and national legislation.
In line with this, European young farmers regret that co-legislators didn’t keep a maximum age limit of forty years old in the young farmers definition. This could undermine the level-playing-field across the EU and jeopardise the consistency of the performance model.
CEJA and its member organisations will remain very attentive to the content and implementation of the CAP national strategic plans and continue to cooperate with national legislators to fine-tune these. The next generation of EU farmers counts on national governments to be bold and meet the ambitions they demonstrate every day on their farms.
