A new report has claimed that Ireland’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) Strategic Plan 2023-2027 contains a number of “fairwashing tricks”.
According to that report, this may give a false impression that this CAP is more fair than the previous CAP from 2014 to 2020.
The report was compiled and published by the Agriculture and Rural Convention (ARC2020), which describes itself as a non-governmental organistion (NGO) that works to reform CAP for improved climate, biodiversity and rural policies.
Its report, published this week, analysed what it calls “fairwashing” in national CAP strategic plans, which it described as “the act of deceiving society on supposed progress towards redistributing public resources based on ethical principles and evidence, while in fact retaining the status quo as regards power, rules, money, and resources”.
According to ARC2020, Ireland is culpable of this practice in relation to CAP.
The report claims that fairwashing is carried out by:
- Working to ensure small or no policy changes towards reverting the national and the EU baseline situation of 80% of direct payments going to 20% of the largest beneficiaries;
- Investing in communication efforts to claim that policy changes regarding fairness or equal distribution have had a real and significant impact.
The report looked at three EU member states as case studies, namely Ireland, France and Germany.
The study looked at six ‘fairness tools’, as follows:
- Internal convergence;
- Maximum level of entitlement payment;
- Capping direct payments of large recipients;
- Redistributive payments towards small / medium farmers;
- Payments for young farmers;
- Whether a dedicated small-farmer scheme is in place.
For each case study country, the report defined each as either a forward step towards more fairness; a status quo step; or a backward step. It also stated whether or not a particular step was, in ARC2020’s view, a fairwashing trick.
Looking at what ARC2020 had to say about Ireland, the report said that Ireland’s move to greater convergence in CAP 2023-2027 – which will see direct payments below the national average brought up to within 85% of the national average, as opposed to 60% in CAP 2014-2020 – is a forward step.
On the maximum level of entitlement payment, which the report cites as €320 in this current CAP compared to a €700 maximum entitlement payment in the last CAP, ARC2020 said that this is ostensibly a forward step, but claims that it also constitutes a fairwashing trick.
According to the study, the maximum payment entitlement could harmonise the value of entitlement payments across the country, but the maximum value is “still considerably higher than the expected average payment entitlement of €165 foreseen in 2026”.
Looking at capping, the report states that Ireland’s strategy for 2023 to 2027 – an absolute cap on payments of €100,00 and a reduction of 85% on the portion of a payment above €60,000 – is also a step forward, but is a fairwashing trick due to the way it is used.
The report claimed: “Although the capping of direct payments was maintained and improved in Ireland, the threshold was set up so high for the average Irish farm size that the actual money shifted through this tool is ultimately minimal or symbolic.”
On redistributive payments – which in Ireland takes the form of the Complimentary Redistributive Income Support for Sustainability (CRISS), which distributes 10% of the Pillar I budget to the first 30ha of each recipient – the report said the same; that this is a forward step but also a fairwashing trick.
The report said: “Ireland allocated the bare minimum budget for redistributive payments, and yet, the eligibility criteria for CRISS are so broad that these payments can return to the first 30ha of all farm, including larger ones.
“55,000 farms above 30ha will be eligible for CRISS, nearly the same as the number of farms below 30ha [67,000], according to the approved CAP Strategic Plan.”
The payment for young farmers – which in Ireland is done through the Complementary Income Support for Young Farmers (CIS-YF) – has been increased from 2% of the Pillar I budget to 3% for 2023 to 2027, something which the ARC2020 report said is a forward step. This measure, though, does not get a strike for fairwashing.
Summarising Ireland’s performance, the report said: “Overall, Ireland has made positive steps forward as regards the redistribution of direct payments compared to the baseline situation, but still these met only the minimum requirements of the EU legislation instead of going beyond them.
“[These steps] also take advantage of the longest timeframe allowable to delay its effective implementation.
“For instance, the commitments towards internal convergence are meeting the smallest value of 85% by 2027, which is the longest timeframe to do this,” it adds.