Un articol de la un colaborator englez despre politica agricola in UE. Luke Dale-Harris este un jurnalist freelance cae locuieşte în Cluj, editor media pentru Milvus Group, un ONG din Târgu Mureş. Scrie pentru mai multe publicaţii, de la the Guardian la Der Spiegel, despre toate tensiunile dintre diverse politici şi protecţia mediului.

In a process of neat symmetry, this week bought what appeared on face value to be two pieces of good news for the European Environment. First, on Tuesday, it was announced that the LIFE Program, the EU’s main financial instrument supporting environmental and nature conservation projects, would increase by 20% for the 2014-2020 period. Twenty four hours later, the final vote was cast to cement the reforms to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for the same period. Widely criticized as a means of both redistributing money into the hands of rich landowners and intensifying agriculture at the expense of the environment and rural society, the new CAP budget is down 20% from 2006 and has been heralded by Dacian Ciolos, the European commissioner for agriculture and rural development, as ‘fairer and greener’ than ever before.

But the devil is in the details. While the LIFE program budget has increased, it is now to accommodate a new climate spending stream as well, stretching the budget further than its 20% increase warrants. As such, the funds for LIFE environment, the centre piece of the conservation program, have actually been reduced. Meanwhile, the funds for the new LIFE climate stream have, in part, been rechanneled from other EU climate change projects. And still, altogether the LIFE program takes up just a paltry 0.3% of the EU’s budget. However loudly the European Commission declares that LIFE is turning the EU into a ‘resource efficient, greener and more competitive low-carbon economy’, the reality is that clima