“A simpler CAP, a challenge for everyone”: that was the theme of a pan-European conference recently held in Brussels by the General Directorate of Agriculture of the Commission and dedicated to the simplification of the Common Agricultural Policy. During the conference the delegates discussed an action plan of twenty proposals to reform and “simplify the administrative formalities” that accompany the CAP. They include a plan to reduce the current 21 common market organizations that regulate the various agricultural markets, which the Executive intends to present by the end of the year. If it is true – says the Executive – that “the CAP is by its very nature complex, deals with complex problems in a geographically complex area, and is the result of difficult political compromises”, it is no less true that the primary and secondary sectors have a need to “reduce administrative constraints in order to devote themselves to more strictly agricultural activities”. The European Commissioner for Agriculture Marianna Fischer Boel herself declared that “the more the CAP is simplified, the more it will be able to perform to the best its role of stimulating the rural economy of the EU”.
