This house would abolish the Common Agricultural Policy - Opening speeches

First proposing speech 
The Common Agricultural Policy, also known as CAP is a system of EU subsidies and programs for farmers all along Europe. To explain the creation of this treatment, we can say it was a compromise between France and the industrialized Germany, by which Germany will help to pay French’s farmers in exchange of the access to the French market. It was a good policy, that helped Europe to rise, but nowadays it has some problems that are not admissible, so we have to do a big reform before 2013, when it has to be remodeled. Because, when we say it has to be abolish, it doesn’t mean destroy it completely, but create a new one with the good parts of this one and solving all, or at least almost all the problems. [...]

by AF

First opposing Speech 
Hello ladies and gentlemen, today our talk is about Common Agricultural Policy. For those who are not familiar with the motion we would highlight it below: “TH would abolish CAP”. According to Oxford dictionary this means “to formally put an end to”, Cambridge dictionary: “to end an activity or custom officially”. Our house would point your attention to the fact that this motion does not mean reforming the policy, but complete annulation of all the initiatives proposed by the CAP. So let us take a look if it’s a good idea. To sum up, key idea of farm subvention was to provide autonomy to European food market. And this policy had several consequences that we will try to describe. Now, let’s imagine what we face if we will cancel CAP. [...]

by AMi

First proposing speech

The Common Agricultural Policy, also known as CAP is a system of EU subsidies and programs for farmers all along Europe. To explain the creation of this treatment, we can say it was a compromise between France and the industrialized Germany, by which Germany will help to pay French’s farmers in exchange of the access to the French market. It was a good policy, that helped Europe to rise, but nowadays it has some problems that are not admissible, so we have to do a big reform before 2013, when it has to be remodeled. Because, when we say it has to be abolish, it doesn’t mean destroy it completely, but create a new one with the good parts of this one and solving all, or at least almost all the problems.

The first big problem is the huge evolution Europe has suffer since the creation of the CAP, and the non-evolution of the CAP itself. This makes that nowadays the CAP is giving advantage to some countries and farmers over others. Speaking of countries, the new admitted members are into transitional rules that make a difference between them and the rest. About personal farmers, the money is given by land properties, not by production, so some farmers are receiving money even without cultivating the land! And even if they are cultivating it, this rule gives privilege to big landowners over small farmers, who are the ones who really need it. To give some digits, the 80% of the total budget is given to 20% of the farmers. So we can roundly say that it’s not a fair system.

Other problem is the cost of the project, almost €50 billion (48% of the EU budget) when agriculture represents only 1.6% of Europe’s gross domestic product and only the 5% of Europeans work in this sector. And the worst in this aspect is that is money wasted, because it’s not used for increment productiveness or to reduce the producing price by creating new machines or improving the floor etc., but it’s just given to the farmers to fall the final cost of the product. I mean, it’s not an investment for the future, something temporary that will give results later as better or cheaper products, like investing in scientific research and technology; but something that each year we will have to pay more and more forever!

And the last problem that I’m going to speak of, but not the least important is how the CAP affects the rest of the world. Because, for those who are receiving the subsidies it’s very easy to export with a low price, that poor farmers cannot compete with. In conclusion, the CAP is a part of an unfair trade system in favour for the richer countries, indoors, but also outdoors of the EU.

I want to emphasize to finish, that we want to drastically reform the CAP to change the problems that it has and make a better system, not just to eliminate it or something like that. But it has so many problems, as I said and the follower speeches will also do that the reform has to be really big, so it will be almost like abolishing the CAP and creating a new and better CAP II.

AF 

First opposing Speech

Hello ladies and gentlemen, today our talk is about Common Agricultural Policy. For those who are not familiar with the motion we would highlight it below: “TH would abolish CAP”. According to Oxford dictionary this means “to formally put an end to”, Cambridge dictionary: “to end an activity or custom officially”. Our house would point your attention to the fact that this motion does not mean reforming the policy, but complete annulation of all the initiatives proposed by the CAP. So let us take a look if it’s a good idea. To sum up, key idea of farm subvention was to provide autonomy to European food market. And this policy had several consequences that we will try to describe. Now, let’s imagine what we face if we will cancel CAP.

To be honest, for almost entire world agriculture is not attractive, if we consider the business point of view. All developed countries such as USA and Japan have subsidies for theirs farmers. The reason is that labour price in EU or USA much higher than in the third world. If we will maintain fair market price for our farmers then we risk to bankrupt domestic manufacturer. How that would affect us? Imagine that you won’t be able to have a real Camembert, because it’s either too expensive to follow all the hard technology and tradition of production either the manufacturer is out of business. And even if Camembert survives, all the diversity will be lost in any ways. The same thing for wine, German beer, Italian olive oil. This is no doubt a loss of authenticity of national food tradition. Well, this house is not ready yet for such an action.

A trend of nowadays that still gains popularity - bio production. It would be extremely difficult, not to say impossible to control production of such articles everywhere in the world. So all the consumers of bio products will hardly be satisfied.

Briefly, because such a matter always bores, decrease of size of industry will lead to loss of autonomy, and this means that EU will be more vulnerable to any crop failure in importing countries, caused by democracy establishment, tornado or simply bad weather. This lead to price instability of basic products, as a result excess inflation.

Clearly, there have been much told about CAP recently due to approaching reforms in this policy previewed in 2013. Much have been done since the CAP was introduced in 1962, much still have to be done. We do imagine our opponents to say that this is enormous and useless waste of money and it is hard to debate. Indeed, CAP today occupies almost a half of EUs budget, providing small contribution to GDP. But was it the idea of CAP? Does the GDP of agriculture really matter? We have already shown that farming will hardly ever be rentable without subvention. Speaking about concrete projects, this house would cut back on agricultural spending for the period concerned. This decision was made according to study of todays over-production level. The overall summary have been done, precise numbers and reforms envisaged will be scrupulously presented on the following speeches of this debate. 

Thank you, and support us. 

AMi