Regulation 2009/72 - Modifications to the Common Agricultural Policy by - Main contents

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

L 30/1

The reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) agreed in 2003 and 2004 included provisions for reports to gauge their effectiveness, and in particular to appraise their impact with respect to their objectives and to analyse their effects on the relevant markets. In this context, the Commission presented a Communication to the European Parliament and Council entitled ‘Preparing for the “Health Check” of the CAP reform’ on 20 November 2007. That Communication and the subsequent discussions of its main elements by the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, as well as numerous contributions arising from public consultation should be taken into account.

The provisions of the CAP concerning public intervention should be simplified and aligned by extending tendering in order to achieve a harmonised approach insofar as possible. In particular, the respect of maximum quantities and quantitative limits for cereals, butter and skimmed milk powder may require rapid action. In order to provide for this, and since closing buying-in at a fixed price, adopting allocation coefficients and, for common wheat, switching to the tendering procedure, do not involve the exercise of discretion, the Commission should be permitted to do so without the assistance of the Committee.

In respect of cereals intervention, the system should be adjusted to ensure competitiveness and market orientation for the sector, while keeping the role of intervention as a safety net in the event of market disruptions and facilitating farmers' response to market conditions. Upon adoption by the Council of Regulation (EC) No 735/2007 (4), which reformed the intervention system for maize the Commission undertook to review the cereals intervention system, on the basis of an analysis which revealed some degree of risk for additional barley intervention if prices were low. The present outlook for cereals has, however, since changed significantly, and is characterised by a favourable world market price environment driven by expanding world demand and low global cereal stocks. Within this context, intervention levels should be set at zero for other feed grains. This would allow for intervention without having negative implications for the cereals market as a whole. The favourable outlook for the cereals sector also applies to durum wheat. This means that buying into intervention has currently lost its relevance since market prices are significantly above the intervention price. Therefore, buying into intervention for durum wheat is not currently necessary and intervention levels should be set at zero. Since intervention for cereals should be a safety net rather than an element which influences price formation, the differences in harvesting periods across Member States, which effectively start the marketing years, are no longer relevant since the system will no longer provide for prices reflecting intervention levels plus monthly increments. In...