The integration of environmental objectives in the common agricultural policy\u2014partisan politics in the European Parliament

Colette S. Vogeler

doi:10.1007/s12286-021-00496-3

Abstract

This study examines the policy preferences of political groups in the 8th European Parliament regarding the design of agricultural policy and the integration of environmental goals therein. Due to the high degree of Europeanization of the Common Agricultural Policy, the analysis of party positions at the EU level is particularly interesting. To what extent are the positions of political groups changing against the background of the increasing public awareness for environmental and animal welfare issues in agricultural policy? By means of a discourse network analysis of the plenary debates on selected policy proposals during the 8th term of the European Parliament, the positions of the political groups in agricultural policymaking are explored. The comparative analysis clearly reveals differences in problem perceptions and preferred policy solutions between the different political groups. Substantive differences are apparent between the EPP on the one side and the Greens/EFA and the GUE/NGL on the other side. EPP members still mostly represent traditional agricultural goals such as food security and income support for farmers, whereas the Greens/EFA and the GUE/NGL deputies promote a change towards a more environmentally and animal welfare friendly agricultural policy. At the same time, the analysis reveals a broad consensus across political groups regarding the general need to increasingly integrate sustainability concerns in the design of the future Common Agricultural Policy.

Highlights

Agricultural activities and in particular the resource-intensive livestock farming contribute significantly to the overexploitation and to the pollution of natural resources (Möck et al 2019)
These statements are excluded in the following as commissioners or representatives of the European Commission (EC) are not affiliated to a political group of the European Parliament (EP) and do not fall into the research interest of the study, which is the identification of partisan differences
The findings will be discussed in comparison. In addition to this visualization of the three networks (Figs. 1, 2 and 3) the most central political groups and the ten most central concept for each discourse network have been extracted and are listed in the appendix as separate tables. 4.1 Dairy package The review of the implementation of the dairy package discussed in Parliament in 2015 dealt with the difficult situation and the future circumstances of the European dairy sector

Summary

Introduction

Agricultural activities and in particular the resource-intensive livestock farming contribute significantly to the overexploitation and to the pollution of natural resources (Möck et al 2019). A sustainable transformation of the agricultural and the food system is one of the greatest challenges at the intersection of agricultural and environmental policymaking. In addressing these challenges the European Union has a important role, given that agricultural policy is one of the most Europeanized policy areas (Töller 2010). The European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was historically based on these premises and created incentives to increase production, which contributed to a strong intensification and regional concentration of agricultural activities and partly even to overproduction (Daugbjerg and Swinbank 2016; Skogstad 1998). The integration of environmental objectives in the common agricultural policy—partisan

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Discussion

Conclusion