Brussels, 16th November 2007

EURO COOP is the European Community of Consumer Co-operatives. Its Secretariat is based in Brussels. Its members are the national organisations of consumer co-operatives in 16 European countries. Created in 1957, EURO COOP today represents over 3,200 local and regional cooperatives, the members of which amount to more than 22 million consumers across Europe.

On 20th November 2007, the European Commission is due to present its first ideas on what has been called the 2008 "Health Check" of the EU's common agricultural policy (CAP). As it did for the last round of CAP reform that took place under the 2003 "Mid-Term Review", Euro Coop is closely following the evolving situation. It therefore presents this position paper to expose its views for the future of the CAP on the basis of the experience of its members as Consumer Co-operatives which are well informed in their daily activities of the expectations of both consumers and farmers. This position paper is intended to help the European Commission and the Governments of the Member States of the European Union (EU) to take into account Consumer Co-operatives' wishes for the forthcoming CAP Health Check as well as for the debate which will follow in year 2008.

Preliminary remarks

Euro Coop acknowledges that the CAP has undergone substantial changes after the 2003 Mid-Term Review but it believes that there is still room left for improvement. Euro Coop wants an economically, environmentally and socially sustainable agriculture. This means that rural development policies should aim at a competitive, dynamic and modern European agriculture but, at the same time, also consider consumers' demands for better environmental, social, health and food safety standards.

Euro Coop believes that agricultural production should continue to take place both in productive and less productive regions. In the first case, for reasons of efficient food production while in the latter because it enhances landscapes and biological diversity whilst providing a social fabric for remote regions.

Euro Coop encourages economic diversification in rural areas, and raising the quality of life. As mentioned by Commissioner Fischer-Böel in a recent speech1, European rural areas have great strengths, but these are not always used to the full. In the EU-25 income per head is 50 per cent higher in urban areas than in the countryside. In rural areas, fewer women have a job, the service sector is less developed, rates of higher education are lower and fewer households have broadband internet access. Within the scope of European Union's Lisbon agenda for jobs and growth, Euro Coop therefore welcomes policies aimed at drawing out unused potential in all parts of the Union with particular reference to small economic structures.

These social criteria mean, among others, that the rural policies should take into account the issues of employment, cultural diversification and regional development. From the consumers' point of view, the social criteria also imply that the CAP has to serve as a way to improve food quality and safety.

Environmental criteria means that rural policies should also take into account the problems related to their consequences on the environment. In particular, climate change is an item which is high not only on the environmentalist agenda but also at more comprehensive policy level. Agriculture has a fundamental role to play in this respect and it is therefore key that the CAP thoroughly addresses the challenge by further greening and redirecting subsidies to activities apt to curb climate change effects. Euro Coop therefore suggests adopting more targeted schemes aimed at offering financial compensation to farmers taking care of climate change, landscape and biodiversity.

As a further environmental concern, Euro Coop calls the European Commission to be careful when allowing GMO crops to be grown in Europe and to listen to consumers' concerns to this regard. It is indeed necessary to investigate the mid and long-term effects that the use of GMOs could have on human health and the environment, as well as their economic and social impacts. Caution and sound science represent therefore the two key principles that should guide the EU on this issue. Besides scientific evidence and in order to ensure that consumers have an effective right to choose between GM and non-GM food, it is necessary to guarantee the segregation of GM sources. Moreover, the costs to guarantee protection of non-GM sources from contamination should be borne by those who produce GM products. These producers should also be required to follow a strict certified regime that ensures that they do not contaminate others with transgenic materials.

Towards a truly sustainable agriculture in Europe

Bearing as a principle that public money must be refocused on real social and environmental benefits, the guiding line must be that public money should be used to pay for public goods that consumers want and need. The path towards uncoupling of direct payments should be continued and be further subjected to environmental and social conditions for more effective cross-compliance.

The Health Check should extend the options for rural development spending to provide incentives for adaptation to and mitigation of climate change, including support of biodiversity corridors and carbon sequestration. Support should be also provided for an improved water management.

Compulsory modulation, understood as money transfers from direct payments to rural development measures, should be increased in order to emphasise the results of the progressive switch of funds from the first to the 2nd Pillar. In this way, rural development and environmental protection schemes would be further protected.

Euro Coop believes that organic farming is one of the best means to achieve a truly sustainable agriculture in Europe. The development of an EU fund destined to support farmers during the conversion period and afterwards should be further encouraged. Yet, we insist that this should not prevent Member States to take national initiatives aiming at achieving the same goal. Moreover, the EU should encourage the selling of organic products by envisaging market measures that take into account the externalities of products which do not comply with the environmental standards of organic production. This could be a way of "getting the prices right" and making organic products more affordable for consumers.

Non-market effects such as preserving landscapes or protecting bio-diversity should be taken into account in the CAP's funding system. This could be a way of helping farmers in the case subsidies are phased out, by remunerating them for environmental benefits that the market does not provide for and which can be seen as "non-trade concerns" as mentioned in the Doha declaration.

Euro Coop calls on the EU to be consistent with engagements undertaken vis-à-vis animal welfare standards in Europe2 and to listen to consumer concerns3 on this issue. This would guarantee consumers that the animal products they purchase are produced in an ethical way without causing unneeded sufferance to animals. To reach this aim, European farmers should receive incentives to convert to systems which better respect the welfare of animals while delivering better quality.

Labeling of environment-friendly and socially-aware production methods should be encouraged further by future agricultural policies. Consumer Co-operatives have experience in implementing consumers right to make informed choices. For example, many Consumer Co-operatives have used labeling to give consumers information about the environmental and social impacts of the products they buy. As a matter of fact, Euro Coop thinks that this has only a marginal effect at present, but it is an area that it hopes will develop in the future. European farmers should be encouraged to join these systems.

For more information please contact:

Rosita Zilli - Policy Adviser E-mail: rzilliateurocoop.coop
Tel.: +32-2-285-00-72 - Fax.: +32-2-231-07-57

1. Speech/07/593 delivered at the conference organised by Birdlife International on "CAP vision" (Brussels, 3 October 2007).
2. Protocol on Protection and Welfare of Animals annexed to the EC Treaty (1999); EU Sustainable Development Strategy (2006); EU Action Plan on the Protection and Welfare of Animals (2006).
3. Eurobarometer surveys in 2005 and 2007.