Simplifying the CAP

A single Common Market Organisation

The creation of a single Common Market Organisation (CMO) has slimmed down legislation in the farming sector, improved its transparency and made the policy more easily accessible. It is an example of applied better regulation and therefore forms an integral part of the Lisbon strategy. The creation of a single CMO has been the most significant technical simplification of the CAP yet undertaken. It should not be interpreted as a way to reform the policy by the back door. The single CMO allows the repeal of almost 78 Council acts and replaces more than 920 legal articles in the current regulations with around 230.

On 18 December 2006, the European Commission had proposed to establish a single Common Market Organisation for all agricultural products, to replace the existing 21 CMOs. The move was a major step in the ongoing process of streamlining and simplifying the Common Agricultural Policy for the benefit of farmers, administrations and companies handling agricultural products.

The existing CMOs for the different agricultural sectors have been replaced, in the course of the year 2008, by the new single CMO Regulation. This also meant that the individual sector specific management committees have been replaced by one single Management Committee for the Common Organisation of Agricultural Markets. The single CMO in general and the single Management Committee in particular replaced the sector specific rules/management committees according to the following timetable:

Date of Application	Sector
1 January 2008	Fruit and vegetables Processed Fruit and vegetables Bananas Live plants Ethyl alcohol Apiculture Quota management Sugar (art. 56) Other products ("solde")
1 April 2008	Dried fodder Silkworm Milk quota provisions
1 July 2008	Cereals Hops Raw tobacco Beef and veal Pigmeat Sheep meat and goat meat Eggs Poultry meat Seeds Olives Flax and hemp Milk and milk products; with the exception of quota provisions
1 August 2008	Wine Article 191; deleting Wine Management Committee provisions
1 September 2008	Rice
1 October 2008	Sugar sector, except Article 56 (quota management), which applies from 1-1-2008
1 January 2009	Community scales for carcass classification Monitoring and control of exports of products receiving export refunds (ex. Reg. 386/90)

Introduction

Single CMO

Cross-compliance

Council Regulation (EC) No 1234/2007 of 22 October 2007 establishing a common organisation of agricultural markets and on specific provisions for certain agricultural products (Single CMO Regulation)

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Archive:

Proposal for a Council Regulation establishing a common organisation of agricultural markets and on specific provisions for certain agricultural products

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Press release

Press conference with Commissioner Fischer Boel

Background memo

Questions & Answers