Work programme 2010
The Common Agricultural Policy has always been the ‘core-business’ of the Groupe de Bruges. The focus of the GdB is on long term developments and from a global context, from which recommendations for the reforms of the CAP are being developed.
Currently, with the Health Check of the CAP being concluded and the Budget Review under way, the debate on the CAP post 2013 has already started. As the Health Check was already presented as a set of mere technical modifciations, the contours of the CAP post 2013 also lack an overall vision on sustainable (people, planet, profit) agricultural and rural development, a vision that is necessary not only to keep the future of the CAP out of the hands of the Ministers of Finance, but also as a (futher) contribution to the European Project in which the CAP has always played a crucial role.
A part from lacking a common vision, the debate currently suffers from three other problems:
The GdB wants to contribute to the development of a new common vision and to help solve the communication problems with the general public and between the different stakeholders, based on the following premises and questions:
The GdB will continue its work through the existing working group, that will develop a first proposal for a new, integrated vision. This vision will form the starting point for the organisation of a series of debates (seminars, workshops, conference, web polls and web surveys) that include a wide audience and that aims at bridging the existing gap between the two arenas of debate. Debates will be organised both at a European and at a national level, through the local networks of the GdB members.
In 2004 10 new countries, mostly from Eastern Europe, have become members of the European Union. In 2007 two more, Rumania and Bulgaria, have joined. At the moment there are four candidate members: Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkey and Montenegro. Other countries, mostly SEE countries, are hoping to be accepted as candidate members shortly. The position of Turkey is still debated, but in the long run the door is open. Should the European Union stop there or should it enlarge further, including also countries such as the Ukraine, Moldavia and Serbia? The position of the Groupe de Bruges has always been clear: the European Union cannot close the door to these countries. We have a historic obligation to include them in the Union and into the unified market.
How do the new accessions affect these countries, what would be the effects on CAP and Rural Development policy, given ‘Brussels’’ strict budgetary regime, if more countries were allowed into the Union? What are the pro’s and con’s from the perspective of sustainable rural development? What are the consequences in terms of governance and relationship between European Union and its Member States?
There is at first of all a need to start with an in depth analysis of the situation in each of these countries and get people from these countries involved in the debate. The Groupe de Bruges wants to serve as a platform for research and debate given the fact that the GdB already has members in these countries. By using the personal and professional networks of current members, new people from these countries can be included.
In the autumn of 2009 an international conference on this subject will organised in one of the non-EU countries, Albania.
From there the GdB will engage in discussing the relationship between further enlargement and CAP and debate different scenarios.
With the accession of 12 new members and with new members at the horizon, the topic of subsistence and semi-subsistence farms has gained a new interest and importance. In most Member States, both old and new, these farms are widely present and still fulfill an important role in the economy and social fabric of rural areas. What exactly is the situation concerning these farms in the various MS? What is Europe’s vision on their future and their contribution to a sustainable and multifunctional agriculture and to the viability of rural areas? How does the CAP affect them and in what ways should the CAP be changed in the light of these questions? What are the effects of the current and expected exodus of these farmers to the cities or other parts of the Union? How can alternative employment be developed to keep more people in rural areas?
At the GdB meeting in Bucarest in 2008 the Groupe has supported the Romanian Ministry of Agriculture to organise an international conference on the theme of small farms, specifically in relationship to food safety and food safety policies. The idea is get this topic higher on the European agenda. The Groupe de Bruges will utilize its network to contribute to the debate.
Research started in 2009 by the members on the situation of small farms in their respective country will be finalised at the beginning of 2010. The results will be used to prepare a paper and a follow-up conference on small farms and rural development in 2010.
The accession of 12 new Member States to the EU has evoked a new debate on developments and consequences of labour migration both within the EU and from outside the EU to the EU. In general this debate is being held in negative terms: migrant workers are considered a threat to local employment and undercutting of wage levels, there is fear of an increase in crime rates, poor working conditions of migrant workers are critizised and frictions arise as a result of cultural and religious differences.
Empirical research, however, also shows the other side of this development: the positive contribution that labour migrants can have on both their country of origin as well as on the hosting country. Migrant workers in agriculture in some cases contribute to the revitalisation of rural areas of the hosting countries, they learn trades that can be used back home and their remittances are invested in improving agriculture or the rural economy.
Which examples already exist of this positive contribution of rural labour migration? How can this added value be put to better use in both the country of origin and the host country? What policies are needed to achieve this? How can the public be informed on this added value so as the give them a better and more balanced picture on the matter of rural migration? The Groupe de Bruges, in collaboration with the Albanian Foundation for Training and Development will organise a first workshop on this theme on October 16 2009 in Tirana. The results of the workshop will be used to form a working group that will do further research, write a discussion paper on the subject and develop a communication strategy to engage the public in a debate on the matter.
Retailers over the last decade have begun a process of amalgamation and are internationalising also rapidly into the Eastern European countries. In the processing industry these developments have been underway since the seventies, partly facilitated by the CAP and US Farm Policy e.g. through export subsidies.
A clear development is that of the cost price squeeze whereby food products are offered by the retailers to the consumer below cost price. This clearly is not in the interest of farmers and puts even more stress on the needs to produce more sustainably and to manage the rural landscapes. But is it in the interest of the consumer?
According to the director of Tesco the consumer is the best regulator of the market. This, however, is not the case. The consumer expects regulation for example of production standards and food safety. We need a policy to meet the needs that are not met by the market.
Only quite recently, at the instigation of the European Parliament, the European Commission, for the first time, has agreed to look into the position of the different parties in the food suply chains.
The GdB feels that the developments in de food supply chains should belong to the realm of national and international policy. A working group will prepare a background document that will serve as a starting point for an internal debate among GdB members. The document will include research materials on developments in the food supply chains in the various European countries. The debate will result in a series of recommendation to the European Commission.
In 2005 the Fondation pour le Progrés de l’Homme Charles Léopold Mayer (FPH) has taken the initiative to improve relations between China and Europe on non-governmental levels. For this it has developed the China – Europe Forum (http://china-europa-forum.net). In July 2010 the Third Forum will take place in China. The FPH has requested the Groupe the Bruges, in conjunction with Chinese partners from the School of Agriculture and Rural Development of the Remnin University of China, to organise one of the workshops, entitled What agricultural policies? What contribution of China and Europe for a global agricultural policy?
A first European workshop was held in Prague in June 2009. In July 2009 a meeting of all European and Chinese workshop leaders took place in Paris. The Groupe de Bruges will organise another European meeting in the Spring of 2010 to prepare for the Forum. A delegation of Groupe de Bruges members will attend the workshop in Beijing and the forum in Hong Kong in July 2010. The work will continue until the next Forum in 2012.
Main questions and challenges that have been indentified for the workshop:
what are the best conditions for geo-political balance and mutual respect for a thriving global community? Evaluation of WTO Agreement on Agriculture versus regional agricultural trade policies. What can China and Europe contribute to a better agricultural trade system?
todays globalised and liberalising world leads to higher price volatilities. The recent dramatic rise and subsequent fall in food prices has demonstrated this, excacerbated by the recent financial and economic crisis. How exactly does the financial and economic crisis affect agriculture? How do the European and Chinese agricultural policies react? What are good policies to anticipate or remedy these crises and at what level of governance?
How can food security be obtained and improved and at the same time a sustainable management of resources be secured? What are good practices? What policies to find a balance?
Agriculture and rural development are connected by definition. What can we compare between European and China? How can we differentiate and integrate policy on different levels (local, national, regional) to accomodate the multifunctional role of different types of rural areas and agriculture? What are examples of best practices?
The exodus from rural areas both in China and in Europe to the cities leads to a negative attitude of citizens towards agriculture and rural areas and a disconnection between cities and rural areas and between food consumption and food production. How can citizens be connected to agriculture and rural areas? Should rural development and food policies start in the cities?
Since 2004 the Associazione Allessandro Bartola, chaired by Groupe de Bruges member Franco Sotte, manages a website, www.agriregionieuropa.univpm.it, on agricultural and rural development policies (in Italian) and also issues an electronic newsletter, which so far has had over 100,000 contacts. The Associazione has proposed to use the concept and formats to expand the website and newsletter to other countries. They asked the Groupe de Bruges to act as the platform on a European level. The final aim is to expand the website to all countries of the EU. In this way it can act as a powerful tool not only to inform the general public and specific stakeholder groups on developments in European agricultural and rural development policies, but also to actively engage them in the debate.
Through its members, covering already 19 EU member states, and their networks it is relatively easy to engage a wider range of stakeholders and a significant part of the general public in the debate. The aim for 2010 is to develop an english version of both the website and the electronic newsletter.
The programme described here above implies that the Groupe de Bruges aims at increasing her level of ambition and output over the next years, a process that has already started in 2009. The Groupe de Bruges’s objective is to turn itself into an independent high level think and do tank on European agricultural and rural development policies. As far as we know such an organisation does not exist at the European level. There are of course many lobby groups and stakeholders that have expertise in this field, but none of them can claim to be independent from sectoral, political or national interests. The Groupe de Bruges wants to build on this unique position to bridge the existing gap in communication between the European Commission and the general public and to bring together stakeholders that in a normal setting would not allow themselves to engage in open debates
For this the Groupe de Bruges will:
Overview of activities in 2010
CAP post 2013
Enlargement and CAP
Small farms
Rural migration
Globalising food chains and governance
China Europe Forum
Increasing public awareness and involvement
Programme 2010
