Press Release: CAP Reform: Commission steps up efforts to simplify the Common Agricultural Policy

Experts from around Europe gather in Brussels on 3 October 2006 for a two-day conference on simplifying the Common Agricultural Policy. The keynote speakers will be Agriculture and Rural Development Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel and Enterprise and Industry Commissioner Günter Verheugen. The results of the conference will feed into the Commission’s ongoing efforts to reduce the bureaucratic burden on farmers and national administrations. Cutting ‘red tape’ is a major priority for the European Commission, especially in view of the focus on growth and jobs in the Lisbon Strategy. And as the source of the greatest chunk of EU rules, agriculture must and will play its part. By its very nature, the CAP is complex. It addresses complex problems in a complex geographical setting and is the result of difficult political compromises. But this must not detract from the drive to make it simpler where that is possible. Simplification efforts focus on both technical and political simplification. In the first category are the Commission’s preparations for a single Common Market Organisation, where a proposal is expected in December. The latter is all about changing underlying policies in ways which make them simpler. The upcoming ‘health check’ of the CAP provides a perfect opportunity for further simplification work.