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The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) needs to be profoundly revised because the reform that came into force in January 2023 had been negotiated years earlier, before the Covid emergency and the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East and for this reason it was born inadequate. Inadequacy which, when tested by facts, in the first year of application, proved to be no longer sustainable. Then the inflationary spiral and rising interest rates made the already significant cuts in EU aid to farmers even more painful. A short circuit that exploded in the widespread protests of recent weeks.
This is why we need to take action and we need to do it in a timely manner. These are the premises from which the No Paper starts, which the Minister of Agriculture and Food Sovereignty, Francesco Lollobrigida, will present at the next Agrifish Council on 26 February as Italy’s proposal to modify the EU agricultural policy and which Il Sole 24 Ore is able to anticipate. The document – it must be underlined – will also be important in light of the Council of Heads of State and Government in March for which the Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni requested, and obtained, that there should also be a discussion on the issues of ‘agriculture. And on that occasion, in all likelihood, the Premier will take up and re-propose the salient themes of the No Paper prepared by the ministry led by Lollobrigida.
The document is entitled «Agriculture, the CAP and European food sovereignty. Reconnecting food and society” and focuses on strengthening the resources of the EU agricultural policy because “the current budget has proven to be insufficient to guarantee the necessary balance between economic and environmental sustainability”.
But the main assets of the document are the support and protection of farmers’ income and the strengthening of European food sovereignty. In this light, the lines of future agricultural policy are outlined by dusting off some tools from the past which, in light of the profound changes triggered first by Covid and then by geopolitical scenarios, had perhaps been sent to the attic a little hastily. While at the same time, blind faith in broad trade liberalization has shown few advantages but many limitations that need to be remedied.
The No Paper distinguishes between the objectives that can be achieved in the short term from those that must be postponed until the future reform of the EU agricultural policy.