Ms Anja Murray:

I thank the committee for inviting us to address today's meeting. The Environmental Pillar is a coalition of 26 national environmental non-governmental organisations. We work on a range of issues. We are particularly interested in the Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, because it has a huge impact and huge potential in terms of the natural environment and conservation. It is important to state that all of the organisations represented by The Environmental Pillar are altruistic. As not-for-profit non-governmental organisations, we do not represent any particular vested interests.

I will start by speaking about the basis and the context for the greening of CAP. The need for Ireland to meet market opportunities is most relevant. Agriculture will play a key role in economic recovery and future prosperity in Ireland. Many of the measures that can be funded under CAP are necessary if we are to meet the demand from across the EU and further afield for sustainably produced agricultural products. This real opportunity for Ireland is being pursued by industry leaders. The heads of organisations like Bord Bia and Glanbia have spoken about the need to make sustainability a national mission in Ireland. We need to do more to make sure CAP incentivises and supports sustainable farming practices.

The greening of CAP can help us to deliver public goods with public money. Citizens and taxpayers across the EU have been kicking up a fuss and asking how the spending of 45% of the EU budget on agricultural payments can be justified. The second pillar of CAP, which I will discuss in more detail later in this presentation, is the key public good justification for the allocation of CAP funding. The greening of the first pillar is another really important aspect of these reforms. If we do not green it as we have promised under this reform, we will put the future of CAP funding at risk. The European Court of Auditors has identified that relatively few wider public gains have been achieved. CAP needs to play its role in reversing the trend of declining biodiversity observed in agricultural landscapes across Europe, including in Ireland.

The state of the environment is another reason for the greening of CAP. The natural environment in Ireland is facing enormous challenges. Farmland bird populations are declining more quickly than any other group of bird species. We are facing huge water quality challenges. Birds are indicators of the health of countryside. Losses often equate to losses in ecosystems services which are a valuable asset to Ireland. This tells us that we need to do more to maintain the balance of nature across Irish farmland. We have multiple ways of meeting that objective, including the EU 2020 biodiversity targets and international commitments under the Convention on Biological Diversity. CAP can provide win-win opportunities to address those challenges and help farming to support nature. This depends on effective co-operation with farmers, who are the curators of the vast majority of Ireland’s rural landscape.

The Environmental Pillar is adamant that overall levels of CAP funding and support need to be maintained. We are quite insistent that there should be meaningful delivery of public goods and that harmful farming practices should not be subsidised. Payments under the second pillar of CAP - rural development - are targeted to deliver specific objectives. Therefore, they have greater potential to deliver public goods in return for payments. We have seen in the last week that the second pillar of CAP is facing disproportionately severe cuts. A cut of 13% has been proposed for the second pillar of CAP, whereas the proposed cut for the first pillar of CAP is just 9.7%. In addition, the introduction of reverse modulation from the second pillar to the first pillar has been proposed. This could lead to a cut of up to 25% in the funding of the second pillar of CAP, in effect.

All of this is being negotiated at the moment. This is really important across Europe. The second pillar is seen as the key mechanism for us to deliver on the public good objectives of CAP. If we allow it to be disproportionately cut, we will delegitimise the entire payment. More and more questions are being asked about the overall proportion of the EU budget spent on CAP. Some of the information we have on this issue comes from Eurobarometer studies.