EU Parliament pushes to keep farm, regional funds separate

The European Parliament wants the European Commission to amend its proposal for the EU 2028-2034 budget to restore separate financing streams for farmers and for regional aid.

Siegfried Muresan, who is one of the parliament’s two budget negotiators, told that unless the Commission amended its July proposal that merged the two financing streams into one pool of money, the parliament would reject it.

“We want these policies to be preserved as standalone policies with a clear legislative base, with European objectives, with distinct budgets,” Muresan said.

The EU has been spending roughly a third of its 1.2 trillion euro ($1.4 trillion) budget on the common agriculture policy to support farmers and another third on cohesion policy to equalise standards of living of the various regions of the 27-nation bloc.

To give governments more flexibility as priorities change, the Commission proposed for the first time that in 2028-2034 the two pots should become one, with spending at the discretion of each government.

But the parliament is adamantly against that, arguing that with a single EU market, agriculture policies should also be pan-European to maintain fair competition.

“We want the European agriculture policy, a European cohesion policy, not the possibility for each of the 27 governments to define their policies at national level,” Muresan said.

He said the parliament was against such a “re-nationalization” because the amount of support farmers received would differ from one EU member to another.

“That would lead to a competitive disadvantage for some farmers and it would destroy the single market of agricultural products,” he said.

The European Parliament’s consent is necessary for the EU to adopt the next budget which finances all of the EU’s flagship policies. The long-term budget negotiations are notorious for being the most difficult the EU embarks upon.

Tags: Market, financing streams, common agriculture policy, EU, farmers