New CAP proposal and fruit and vegetables: a mistake

On July 16, the Commission approved its budget and agricultural proposals for the period 2028-2035. I don't find the proposal sound or generally acceptable. Let me explain.

It integrates operational funds into what my friend and colleague Ignacio Atance has aptly called the 'Country Plan'. This has several serious consequences.
 

Insecurity for operational funds

Operational funds are the financial arm of fruit and vegetable producer organizations (POs). Until now, they had secured funding that could generally reach 4.1% of the value of their marketed production.

It's no surprise that the proposal now doesn't mention the percentage of Community funding for operational funds. This will depend in each Member State on the amount reserved for these funds and the annual demand from producer organizations. 

Therefore, the actual Community funding will only be known after the fact. We already had a similar system in the first year of the 1996 reform; it was a disaster and was eliminated at the first opportunity.

The end of transnational POs

Contributing as much as possible to building a Europe of citizens has always been one of my obsessions. And I had the opportunities to act concretely as one of the mentors of the new European regulation for fruit and vegetable markets and, later, as European responsible for those products.

For example, although a PO is required to ensure that at least 50% of its marketed production is produced by its members, purchases by one PO from another PO are not included in the calculation. The goal is to promote collaboration between organized producers so that, when supply needs to be supplemented, a PO prioritizes other POs rather than private retailers.

With increasingly concentrated and powerful customers, the Europe of POs and their Associations is another attempt to build a more balanced commercial chain, an essential condition for a more balanced distribution of the value created among all stakeholders.

What country will now accept financing from its national budget investments and activities carried out in another Member State? This proposal spells the death of transnational POs and Associations of POs.
 

It's true that their development is limited. In 2022, the latest data available on the website of the European Commission's Directorate-General for Agriculture, there were 26 transnational producer organizations and six transnational associations of POs.

Development is scarce, but it has always seemed important to me, even strategic. It's about building a Europe of farmers on the ground, a further step on the path to building a Europe of citizens. 

I'm thinking, among others, of the Flanders region, where farmers neighbouring France, the Netherlands, and Belgium meet; of Catalonia and the French and Spanish Basque Country; of Spanish and Portuguese regions...