How can this affect you? What is the CAP?

The CAP is the European Unions’ Common Agricultural Policy and it consists of two pillars. One pillar for the direct payments to the farmers and the second smaller pillar (1/3 of the first one) aimed at supporting development for farmers, foresters as well as other inhabitants of rural areas. Part of the second pillar – approximately 5 % is allocated to projects using the LEADER methodology.

The questionnaire is not to discuss and determine the budget for the future CAP – it is not about how much? It is about Why? For whom? What? and How?

There is a useful Q&A’s on the website for the questionnaire – click the Questions and Answers-Button!

How do you participate?

You can participate as an individual or by representing an organisation. The open consultations have been accessible for 11 weeks. The deadline for your participating in this consultation is less than a week away:

Deadline for participation is Tuesday 2nd May 2017.

The result of the public consultation will be published online and will be presented by Commissioner Hogan at a conference in Brussels in July 2017.

Apart from mandatory facts about you (the person or organisation answering) the questionnaire consists of 4 parts with the following headlines:

• Agriculture, Rural areas and the CAP today. Topics being on the challenges, tools and aims at the present CAP.
• Objectives and Governance. Topics being on which challenges (employment, rural economy, climate change, migration, cohesion and solidarity) the future CAP should address and at what level (EU, National, Regional or Local). You can add suggestions for new objectives.
• Agriculture, Rural areas and the CAP tomorrow. Topics being on short supply chains, knowledge transfer/sharing, infrastructure, quality of life, social inclusion and LEADER.
• Wrap up: Modernisation and simplification. Topics being on concrete improvements on control, coordination and simplifications

The 4 parts give you the opportunity (not mandatory) to answer 34 questions by either:

• pick 1, 3 or 5 of the answers suggested,
• write comments or
• indicate to what degree you agree to statements given

There is also an opportunity to upload a document together with your answers, and this document could be for instance your national Rural Manifesto or THE European Rural Manifesto. 

The questionnaire can be found here: https://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/consultations/cap-modernising/2017_en and you can find the EC press release regarding the open consultation here: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-17-187_en.htm.

To assist you and to encourage you to participate, we have tried to summarise the contents of the questionnaire in a description here, to allow you to have more information about it prior to initiating the survey

We encourage all ERP partners and friends to respond to this consultation, to ensure the voice of rural Europe to be included in the shaping of the coming CAP. Best of luck with the questionnaire.

Coordinating Team for the European Rural Parliament

Vanessa Halhead, Kim Smedslund and Kirsten Birke Lund