Commissioner Dacian Cioloş visits Sweden
The framework for the future European farm policy must remain "common" because farmers compete in the EU Single Market, but there must remain flexibility to allow for the different specificities of agriculture in the different Member States and regions of the EU, according to EU Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development Dacian Cioloș. Speaking to the media during his visit to Sweden (29/30 July 2010), he underlined that one of the priorities for the future is to maintain an agricultural presence and the diversity of agriculture in all regions.
"There cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach, but the future set-up of the CAP must make it clearer to taxpayers of the broader benefits and public goods that farmers provide through maintaining the land. For example, the environmental, economic and social benefits provided by the maintenance of agriculture here in Sweden are often very different from those provided by agriculture in the mountains of Austria or the farms that I visited in Sicily or rural Portugal, but they are all public goods which are not otherwise remunerated by the market."
The trip included a visit to a 200 hectare dairy farm in Vallentuna, where the Commissioner was able to see for himself the type of Swedish pasture with many trees (>60 trees per hectare), which became an issue in the course of the Health Check negotiations.
In exchanges with stakeholders and members of the Swedish Parliament Agriculture Committee, the Commissioner took the opportunity to underline the positive response to the recent public debate on the post-2013 CAP and the July 19/20 conference on the future direction of policy.
