Wednesday, the EU Parliament should start a historical vote on the Common Agricultural Strategy or #CAP. This vote will have a huge impact on #ClimateChange and #Biodiversity, and unfortunately, the odds are not looking good. Thread

I should have written this thread earlier but I was busy having a panic attack about the *1358* amendments (AUGH) tabled to the report. As one of the 3 AGRI advisers for @GreensEFA (hi @harrietta9!), this means a LOT of work, and most of our amendments won't even be put to vote

But let's go back to content. The #CAP is the agricultural policy of the EU, implementing agricultural subsidies and other programmes, and is the 2nd biggest budget of the EU with an average share of 28% of the overall EU budget. We're talking almost 40 billions for 2021-2027.

To be EXTREMELY clear, we think this budget is *necessary*. #FoodSecurity is kind of a big deal and it should not be left to the "invisible hand of the market". Not having a common policy would also encourage a course to the bottom in terms of environmental practices.

I feel the need to make this precision because some nature defenders are calling for ending the #CAP, on the perfectly real grounds that this policy has been proven to be bad for #pollinators and #biodiversity, useless against #ClimateChange, while being unfair to #SmallFarmers

And before I get #CAP champions in my mentions: 1 - The 1st 2 affirmations are the conclusions of reports published by the EU Court of Auditors, and the 3rd from an external audit paid by the EU Commission 2 - 80% of the CAP subisidies go to 20% of the beneficiaries (the biggest)

The problem is that the #CAP’s objectives remain globally unchanged since 1962 and things have changed since then. #ClimateChange, #EcosystemCollapse, depletion of resources and a quick decrease of the number of farmers in the EU replaced by bigger and more intensive farms.

To solve that, the #CAP would need a complete make-over and notably: to stop giving subsidies based on farms' surfaces, to stop subsidizing harmful farm practicies and to only subsidize public goods, notably towards the environment.

The draft table by the #EUCommission is... not that. No suprise as the then AGRI Commissioner, Phil Hogan, has always been a strong supporter of intensive farming and globalized markets. But we had hopes that the EU Parliament would change course.

After 3 excruciating years of negotiations started before the last EU elections, the 3 biggest political groups in the EU Parliament: the republican right, the liberal centrists and the social democrats struck up a deal on the main articles, notably on the "green architecture"

The "Green architecture" are all the elements in the draft rewarding farm practicies that are positive for the environment. Not really an overhaul of the #CAP, but a patch that could at least mitigate the problems. Let's say that the deal is not really what we were hoping for.

Many threads have been written on the question so I won't repeat them. Here is the one by @BirdLifeEurope https://twitter.com/HarrietBirdlife/status/1316110056744652801?s=20

And here is the one by @Green_Europe https://twitter.com/Green_Europe/status/1317061187331293184?s=20

The biggest problems: 1 - a dilution of the "conditionality" = measures that farmers have to follow to access #CAP subsidies, 2 - a too small % of the budget allocated to environmental measures, and notably to #ecoschemes, 3- 60% MINIMUM allocated to no-string-attached subsidies

This last point means that Member States who would like to put more direct payments into environmental schemes would not even be ALLOWED to do it. This is more than being shy on improvements, this is active sabotage. #FutureofCAP

The rules of the EU Parliament favour compromises over group amendments (which is, in general a good policy, don't get me wrong). This means that if the compromises made by the 3 big groups are voted, the other amendments tabled on the same issue will "fall" = not be put to vote.

Our only hope is that the Compromises do not pass, which requires that a sizable % of the members of these political groups vote against the deal negotiated by their own AGRI teams. Only citizens can achieve this, by calling/writing to their elected EU representatives. #cap

To finish, the link to the #ECA reports I was mentioning earlier:
1 - Biodiversity on farmland https://www.eca.europa.eu/en/Pages/DocItem.aspx?did=53892

2 - Protection of wild pollinators in the EU — Commission initiatives have not borne fruit
https://www.eca.europa.eu/en/Pages/DocItem.aspx?did={2B9DE718-9193-4E76-8885-318094A30B34}

3 - Evaluation of the CAP on climate change and greenhouse gas emissions: https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/29eee93e-9ed0-11e9-9d01-01aa75ed71a1

A few corrections/precisions:
1 - I made a typo in my 3rd tweet - forgot a 0. It is almost 400 billions. I corrected it almost immediately in an answer to this specific tweet but nobody's reading those, so... #Sorry

2 - This sum is over 7 years. Without this precision this is a bit misleading
3 - It is actually more complicated than that because the "old" CAP is being prolonged by 2 years, plus there is added money from the COVID recovery fund whose repartition in time is yet unclear

4 - So, for simplification purposes, let's just say we are between 50 and 60 billions a year. #CAP