Members of the ECR Group called on the European Commission to reform and streamline the Common Agricultural Policy at a joint meeting of the Commission for Natural Resources (NAT) of the Committee of the Regions and the European Parliament's Committee on Agriculture (AGRI). The meeting attended by MEPs and representatives of local and regional authorities took place at the European Parliament in Brussels on 11 January.

The aim of the meeting was to discuss the proposals set out in the European Commission's communication on the future of the CAP, published on 29 November.

"We welcome the Commission's promise to place more emphasis on flexibility in the implementation of the CAP. The Commission rightly points out in its communication that current EU rules are too detailed, meaning that farmers often face great difficulties in implementing them", remarked Adam Banaszak, ECR Group Coordinator at the NAT Commission.

Mr Banaszak drew attention to the need for greater subsidiarity when developing EU policies in order to take account of the specific circumstances not only of Member States but also regions. "We believe that greater consideration should be given to the subsidiarity principle, while maintaining the Community nature of the CAP. The Commission's role should be to oversee efforts by national authorities to comply with core principles and meet objectives, not to dictate specific solutions to them".

As regards accommodating specific regional circumstances, the ECR Coordinator was clearly in favour of maintaining the CAP's two-pillar structure (direct payments and rural development) and the possibility of transfers between pillars. He stressed that, "For more economically developed countries, it is of crucial importance to maintain or even increase the opportunities for transfers from the first to the second pillar. However, for countries such as Poland, it is also important to maintain the possibility of transfers in the opposite direction. We want to ensure that such possibilities exist after 2021".

At the European Parliament, the ECR Group was represented by local and regional authorities from four Member States. Apart from Mr Banaszak, the meeting was also attended by Arnold Hatch from Northern Ireland, László Lóránt Keresztes from Hungary and Henk Staghouwer from the Netherlands. Among the MEPs who played an active role in the meeting was Jim Nicholson, Coordinator of the ECR Group in the European Parliament's AGRI Committee. In his speech, he referred to the work of the Committee of the Regions and drew attention to the importance of new technologies for rural development.

In November 2017, the European Commission published a communication on the CAP after 2020, entitled "The future of Food and Farming". It initiates a formal discussion between the EU institutions on changes to the EU's agricultural policy, which will apply as of 2021.