Posts Tagged Dacian Ciolos

An obvious question for the incoming commissioner of agriculture tomorrow is about who gets the EU farmsubsidies, and who uses them for what. In other words a question by the Budget Control Committe (last question page 3). Why?

In order to make a good plan for the future, we should have a good picture of the current situation. What looks so obvious still is a difficulty when it comes to the EU farmsubsidies. Tomorrow’s questioning of the incoming commissioner for agriculture, Mr.Dacian Ciolos, is the perfect place to ask, how he intends to do move this large part of EU policies towards a new policy without full transparency.

The necessary information will get out eventually. However if the Parliament, journalists, the general public have to waste time on getting out data, there simply will be less time for the relevant debate. Also previously the data got out eventually, se for example why and how the Farmsubsidy team did it here.

Mr. Ciolos will have to draft “proposals for the future of the common agricultural policy in the post-2013 programming period,” according to the letter by president Barroso and to “promote a more competitive EU agriculture in an open world trade environment.”

The drafts – according to Mr. Barroso – should be “based on a comprehensive ex post evaluation of the value added and functioning of the current policy and on the results of the 2008 Health Check.” Thus the wish of Barroso.

The first and important step on the way is to allow not only the Commission but also the Parliament and the European public to be able to make this analysis.

The Budget Control Committee asks, whether the Commission is ready to publish “a list of all beneficiaries of all forms of EU funding on a single, easily accessible and user-friendly database”. This questions should, of course, be asked with a special emphasis to one of those commissioners with the largest budget post under his responsibility.

And he should be asked this question eventhough the outgoing commission has introduced partial transparency on farmsubsidy payments. Unfortunatel  the published data are still very rough and thus of little use other than to ignite envy. How can the public – for example – get an impression of the effort for the environment via farmsubsidies, when only the name of the recipient and the amount received is public, but not the budget line, for which the money was granted? How can anyone get a decent preparation for the second task of Mr. Ciolos, namely preparing the EU agriculture for a competitive world trade environment, when we only know the EU support structure for exporting agricultural products for a few member states?

Granting transparency is not a problem. The technical means nowadays are all there, and the Commission holds all necessary data in one central database. Allow the European parliament and the European public to make enlightened decisions, when something as important as the future of the common agricultural policy is on the agenda.

The information must get out and usually will. But the easier the access to information is made, the more focus can be on a constructive debate.