Strasbourg, 23/11/2021 – Today, the European Pirates voted against the new Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) which has been adopted by the majority of the European Parliament. Even though the text contains several positive elements on performance assessment management measures, overall it has missed an opportunity to really reform the agricultural policy, pirate MEP Mikuláš Peksa says. According to him, CAP does not develop a regulatory framework that could offer to farmers the economical stability and the material conditions needed to change their practices towards more sustainability, as it largely plays into the hands of large agribusinesses. The reform will enter into force in 2023.
Mikuláš Peksa, MEP, Chair of the European Pirates and Member of the Committees on Industry, Research and Energy, and Budgetary Control, in the European Parliament, comments:
“The CAP reform does not include sufficient budgetary control provisions that would prevent subsidies from ending up in the pockets of oligarchs and fraudsters. The very weak monitoring and sanctioning system leaves too much space for conflict of interests and corruption. Transparency has been slightly improved on groups of undertakings but final beneficiaries will still be able to grasp unlimited amounts of public funds without anyone knowing exactly how much. We were hoping the subsidies would finally be capped to a maximum amount in all Member States to better support small and medium-sized farms, but this was blocked yet again. The reform is also insufficient in terms of climate protection. Our proposals were to ensure that agricultural land was adequately protected against large-scale industrial plundering and that farmers use sustainable working practices. Unfortunately, this has not been included in the adopted text and it is a shame, because the largest amount of expenditures in the European budget still does not take into account the fact that we are in a climate crisis.”
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