The European Union’s executive body is proposing a five percent cut to CAP funding in the bloc’s 2021-27 budget in an attempt to balance the books after Britain’s departure and new priorities such as security and immigration.
Brexit will leave around a €10 billion blackhole in the bloc’s annual finances, which means Brussels will either have to scale back its budget or ask its remaining members to stump up more cash.
Agriculture ministers from Paris and Germany have both told the EU AGRI Council, in Luxembourg, to keep the CAP budget at its current levels in a joint letter from the EU’s most influential member states.
French minister Stephane Travert and German counterpart Julia Klockner presented the letter to their EU colleagues, unveiling the new Franco-German agriculture pact.
Mr Travert said: “I welcome the fact that Germany has joined us in the opposition to the Commission’s proposed budget on the CAP.
“A common Franco-German language is essential to guarantee the European added value of this major policy of the EU.”
Paris had already claimed to have won the support of 19 other member states in its efforts to stop Brussels lowering the CAP budget, but has only convinced Berlin, the EU’s biggest financial contributor to come aboard.
The EU’s agricultural budget dishes out huge amounts of subsidies to the bloc’s farmers, and will cost EU taxpayers €365 billion between 2021-2027.
Direct payments to farmers would still form the bulk of EU agriculture spending, or one fifth of all EU expenditure in its planned €1.1 trillion long-term budget.
Farmers will receive around €232bn in direct support, a drop of more than €30bn from the EU’s current seven-year budget.
The Commission is proposing giving more money to small farms and recommending member states set aside at least 2 percent of their direct agricultural funds from the EU for young farmers.
France is the largest beneficiary of the subsidies. The smaller economies of Spain, Portugal, Finland, Ireland and Greece, have also tabled a joint statement opposing the proposed cuts.