Mariann Fischer Boel in an exclusive interview with Aiol speaks about the future of agricultural subsidies, the priorities for Europe's agriculture and the Cap after 2013.

AIOL: The English and Swedish would like to suppress agricultural subsidies and wish to see Europe’s agriculture more in line with the rules of the financial markets. This vision sees the opposition of many countries, Italy amongst them, since they believe that this would effectively create even more problems to Europe’s agriculture. Commissioner what is your opinion on agricultural subsidies?

A: I am not going to comment on the views of individual Member States.

But you know, the discussion on the future of the Common Agricultural Policy for the period after 2013 has already kicked off at the informal Council meetings in Annecy and Brno.

The Commission is planning a Communication early next autumn to stimulate a public debate.

Proposals would then be tabled in 2011.

I have no fixed view yet on exactly what the CAP should look like after 2013, but I do believe there are a number of principles we should stick to.

We need to maintain a common policy. I am totally opposed to renationalizing the CAP.

I believe that we need to maintain a certain level of direct payments to farmers.

These need to be much better targeted than they are now, for example towards environmental protection and animal welfare.

Making such payments on a historical basis no longer makes sense, so we need a more logical and rational basis for direct payments.

And there will certainly be extremely strong pressure from the newer Member States for a redistribution of the budget.

I also think we need to strengthen the Rural Development policy like we began to do in the Health Check, not least in order to confront the new challenges which face agriculture and rural areas in general – in particular climate change.

And, as the recent dairy problems have shown, we need some sort of safety net to help farmers in times of genuine market crisis.

AIOL: We have just voted for a new European parliament, from July Sweden will manage the EU presidency: do you foresee a change in policies, especially the agricultural ones?

There will certainly be a significant change in the political process if and when the Lisbon Treaty is ratified.

At the moment, the European Parliament only has advisory powers over the CAP. When Lisbon enters into force, the parliament will gain full co-decision powers.

That will be a very important development indeed. I look forward very much to seeing who will make up the agricultural committee in the new Parliament.

I have always enjoyed a very close working relationship with the current committee and look forward to this continuing in the future.

As to the Swedish presidency, I am looking forward to working with Eskil Erlandsson and his staff.

There are important issues to focus on, not least climate change, where farming has much to do to reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases, but will also be seriously affected by global warming.

AIOL: You declared that ‘quality will be the basis of the Cap after 2013’, what kind of policies should be enforced to ensure the quality and safety of Europe’s agricultural products?

I think we already have a very good basis to ensure both the quality and safety of EU agricultural products.

We have very strict legislation to ensure that whatever ends up in the shops is completely safe for consumers.

In an increasingly competitive world, Europe must play to its strengths to maintain its position on the market. And the major advantage we have is the excellent quality of our food and drink products.

We also have a sophisticated labeling system, which should allow our farmers to gain a premium for their products if they go beyond the baseline standards.

One good example is the organic farming regulation. From next July, the use of the EU organic logo will be compulsory. We have launched an EU-wide competition to design the new logo, which I think will give it renewed visibility.

Geographical indications are another good example of how producers can add value to their products.

The granting of a geographical indication to a product guarantees that the consumer gets 'the real thing' and benefits from the tradition and history behind the product and can identify it with a particular region.

While we have the basis of a good system, action is still needed to improve communication about the qualities of agricultural products — to help reconnect farmers with consumers.

Quality labelling schemes must be easier for people to use and understand and EU policy must be more coherent.

Only in this way will consumers be able to choose based on detailed information and farmers will be able to get the full benefit of all the effort they put into producing food and drink of the very best quality.

That is why we have launched a review of our quality policy.

I look forward to a lively debate on the Communication we published in May, which I hope will form the base of legal proposals next year.

I am also very keen to see a greater role for promotion policy in the future.

We have the basis of an effective promotion policy to help our farmers and exporters to sell their products both within the EU and on third country markets.

In the wine reform, we enhanced the role of promotion and we are now looking into how we can better promote EU dairy products on a number of markets, particularly in the emerging economies.

I recently took a delegation of agri-business executives to China to look into how to improve our access to that growing market.

So, alongside quality policy, we must also make sure that promotion policy has a more important role in the future.

AIOL: Farmers, quality and safety are, for the Italian agricultural ministry, the focus of National policies. What are Europe’s priorities as far as agriculture is concerned?

Our priority is to maintain a policy which will give our farmers a sound basis for carrying out their multiple role as producers of high quality and safe food, guardians of the countryside, producers of green energy and the heart of a thriving rural economy.

Thanks to the reforms carried out, particularly those since 2003 and last year's Health Check, we now have a solid policy for the period between now and the end of 2013.

This includes a reinforced Rural Development policy, which allows us to improve the competitiveness of our farmers, support environmental projects and encourage the diversification of the rural economy.

Among my priorities this year are the review of agricultural product quality policy and the ongoing review of the system of aid for intermediate Less Favoured Areas.

We are also turning our attention to the future of the CAP after 2013, but must of course react to events.

And that is why we are doing all we can to help dairy farmers get through this difficult period where milk prices are extremely low.