The EU Budget: why it is a terrible deal for wildlife

On Friday afternoon, 27 European Heads of State emerged bleary-eyed from 25 hours of talks about the EU Budget for 2014-2020.  Those who were looking for an overall cut in the Budget, including David Cameron, hailed the talks a success.  From what I have read, most commentators seemed to agree and give credit to our Prime Minister.

But those who wanted a greener Budget that delivered more value for taxpayers' money (for example the RSPB) are left bitterly disappointed.  Given that Europe has lost 300 million birds over the past forty years, we were looking for a Budget that helped the EU to meet its commitment to halt the loss of biodiversity and begin its recovery by 2020.  We have no so such thing.  It is a terrible deal for wildlife. 

It appears that the price of winning on the budget amount was failing to reform what the money will be spent on. 

Agriculture Commissioner Ciolos must be devastated.  He wanted the Common Agriculture Policy to help improve the environment and tackle climate change.  Not only has his ambitions been kicked in to touch, some of the new elements of the deal mean that the new Budget could lead to more rather than less environmental damage. 

As I explain below, there is still much to play for.  CAP rules still need to be finalised by the European Parliament and Member States have the discretion to make things better (or worse) for the environment.  Attention in the UK now turns to Secretary of State, Owen Paterson, and his counterparts in the devolved administrations.  They have a chance to salvage something from the wreck of the Budget deal.

Here's the detail...

What is the overall size of the Budget?  The new Multi-annual Financial Framework (aka the EU Budget) for 2014-202 will now be 960 billion Euros.  This constitutes a cut of just 3.4%. So, taxpayers will be paying slightly less for the European project but what will this mean for the policy that governs how our countryside and many of our protected areas are managed?

What happened to the Common Agriculture Policy Budget?  The CAP was cut by about 11% - not surprising given it's such an expensive and controversial area of spend.   Those of you who know your CAP will be aware that its budget is divided into two bits: payments to farmers (from the so-called Pillar I) and rural development measures including funding for wildlife friendly farming (so-called Pillar II).  Pillar I was cut by less than 10% and Pillar 2 was cut by almost 12%. Not much difference you may think, but there is much more devil in the detail...

Members States now have the discretion to move money between the Pillars (technically known as modulation).  For the first time, Member States will be allowed to shift up to 15-25% of funds from rural development into direct payments to farmers.  While Member States will be able to continue to move money from Pillar I to Pillar II, only the UK and Portugal have, to date, ever shifted money like this and it seems unlikely that many will choose this option.

Any hopes that there would more support for farmers to help protect the environment and recover farmland wildlife have therefore been smashed.

It makes neither environmental nor economic sense.  We know that rural development measures, such as England's agri-environment schemes, have the potential to invest and drive sustainable land management, provide a lifeline to threatened species such as turtle dove, stone curlew and marsh fritillary butterfly and underpin vibrant rural economies.

Did EU Leaders fix any other CAP rules? Yes! They obviously didn't like the idea of placing environmental conditions on direct payments to farmers(so-called greening).  So they have watered proposals down to make them meaningless.  There had a been a proposal to require farmers to manage a percentage of their land for environmental benefit (known as ecological focus areas).  This had been Commissioner Ciolos' big idea.  But EU Heads of State didn't like it.  They have now said that no land should be taken out of production - rendering the idea of 'greening' meaningless.

What about Life? The funding programme called Life, the only bit of the EU Budget which is dedicated to the environment, fractionally increased in size (from 2.5 billion Euros to just shy of 3 billion).  But it  remains tiny at just 0.3% of the overall budget.  We had been arguing for 1%.  Given that 65% of European habitats remain under threat through mismanagement or lack of protection, nature conservation needs all the funding it can get.   

This is, thankfully, not the end of the process.  The European Parliament still has to have its say and, as I describe above, individual Member States have to set their own rules about the CAP Budget.  RSPB supporters (especially the c30,000 that last week asked Mr Cameron to protect environmental spending) now look to Environment Secretary Owen Paterson and his counterparts in the devolved administrations to make the right decisions so that there are sufficient funds to meet their commitments to "protect wildlife... and restore biodiversity".

And this is what I shall turn to tomorrow.

Until then, what do you think of the Budget deal?

It would be great to hear your views.