Water concerns not sufficiently met by the EU Common Agricultural Policy
Water concerns not sufficiently met by the EU Common Agricultural Policy
A report by the European Court of Auditors reveals that the EU has in some regards failed to integrate water policy goals into the common agricultural policy.
EU auditors found that cross-compliance and rural development funding have had a positive impact, but these instruments are limited, relative to the policy ambitions set for the CAP, and the even more ambitious goals set by the CAP regulations for the 2014–2020 period. © ICPDR/Mello
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR CAP INTEGRATION
The special report No. 4/2014 , ‘Integration of EU water policy objectives with the CAP: a partial success’, found a mismatch between the ambition of the policy objectives and the instruments used to effect change. Based on its findings, the auditors recommended that:
- The EU Commission propose the necessary modifications to the current instruments (cross-compliance and rural development) or new instruments capable of meeting the more ambitious goals for the integration of water policy objectives into the CAP.
- Member States should address the weaknesses highlighted in cross-compliance and improve their use of rural development funding to better meet the water policy objectives.
- The Commission and Member states must address the delays in implementation of the Water Framework Directive and improve the quality of their river basin management plans by describing individual measures and making them sufficiently clear and concrete at an operational level.
- The Commission should ensure it has information that is capable of measuring the evolution of the pressures placed on water by agricultural practices, and the Member States themselves are requested to provide data on water in a more timely, reliable and consistent manner.
The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) represents just under 40% of the EU budget (over €50 billion for 2014) and through the CAP the EU seeks to influence agricultural practices affecting water. The EU auditors examined whether the EU’s water policy objectives are properly and effectively reflected in the CAP, at strategic and implementation levels. This involved analysing two instruments, which are being used to integrate the EU’s water policy objectives into the CAP: cross-compliance, a mechanism linking certain CAP payments with specific environmental requirements, and the rural development fund, which provides for financial incentives for actions going beyond compulsory legislation to improve water quality.
The EU auditors found that cross-compliance and rural development funding have had a positive impact, but these instruments are limited, relative to the policy ambitions set for the CAP, and the even more ambitious goals set by the CAP regulations for the 2014–2020 period.
The auditors also found that monitoring and evaluation systems, both those directly related to the CAP and those providing more general data, did not provide the information necessary to fully inform policy-making as regards pressures on water coming from agricultural activities, though they noted some useful initiatives.
A short video interview with Kevin Cardiff, who was responsible for the report, can be watched at: www.icpdr.org/cap-water.
