Commissioner Cioloş: "I want a strong, efficient and balanced Common Agriculture Policy for the future"
Closing the Conference on the Public Debate on the CAP post-2013, EU Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Dacian Ciolos stated this afternoon (20 July):
"Strengthened by your points of view, your ideas and the analytical ability of my services, I will come forward in November with a Communication from the European Commission on the future of the CAP. During this 2-day conference, a common vision has emerged of the major challenges that face us in the years ahead. We must now design our responses for these 7 major challenges: food production; globalisation; the environment; economic issues; a territorial approach; diversity; and simplification. We must seek economic performance, while respecting the balance of nature.
I want to say very clearly that farmers need not be embarrassed because they receive support from public funds.
The first Pillar must become the tool which enables us to reconcile the economic, environmental, social and territorial dimensions.
As for Rural Development policy, it must enable us to modernise our farms, to deploy new support for innovation, to promote diversification in rural areas, to help the agriculture sector respond to volatile markets and to treat in a horizontal manner the complex challenges linked to climate change.
To be strong, the CAP must be simple and understandable. The strength of our rural areas is the diversity of our types of agriculture. It is there that we will find the resources which will allow the sector to modernise. It is in this spirit that I will present options for a renewed CAP, for a Europe close to its farmers and for farmers aware of the expectations of European citizens."
