EU-Agrarpolitik nach 2013 Plädoyer für eine neue Politik für Ernährung, Landwirtschaft und ländliche Räume

EU agricultural policy after 2013 Plea for a new policy for food. agriculture and rural areas

The CAP reforms of the past two decades are to be welcomed in principle. However, with the instruments currently in place we will not succeed in effectively and efficiently mastering the future challenges in the global food situation, food safety, competitiveness, climate change, biodiversity and rural regions. Given that minor modifications will not suffice, a fundamentally different policy architecture for food, agriculture and rural areas must be developed, supporting a policy that helps shape a competitive agri-food industry and is structured to tessellate with other policy fields such as nature conservation, climate, energy, technology, consumer policy and the global food situation. Deployment of funds and instruments should be purely target-orientated, in line with the respective challenge. Since an immediate change in policy is unrealistic, the coming policy period 2014-2020 should be conceived as a transitional period away from a primarily protective agricultural policy towards a policy that focuses primarily on providing structure. The market-orien­tated course of EU agricultural policy should be maintained. Progressive cuts in direct payments should be made and, to balance this, policy measures should be redesigned or funds for these measures topped up in order to specifically prepare the agri-food sector and rural areas for future challenges. The EU Commission should be mandated to draw up a comprehensive concept proposal for a fundamental overhaul of the policy field in its entirety that should start with the mid-term review 2017/2018 and take effect in 2020 at the latest.