Pity the EU, it has, on the one had and as reported yesterday, a series of farmers’ protests on the restrictive nature of the Common Agricultural Policy, including its ‘green’ measures, and on the other now faces legal action if it tries to ‘water down’ these laws.

Politics was ever so, attempting to achieve the achievable whilst attempting to keep people, at least until the political can is kicked down the road.

Anyway, to the immediate issue: ClientEarth lawyers have “called out” the European Parliament after it voted through a potentially illegal proposal to reform CAP.

The revision of the CAP threatens the future of farming and jeopardises the EU’s ability to tackle the biodiversity and climate crises, say the lawyers.

Prior to the European Parliament’s vote, the European Parliament's Legal Service was asked to assess the legality and compatibility of the measures to reform the CAP with existing laws. Despite the EC failing to conduct a climate assessment, which automatically puts the proposal in breach of EU law, the Legal Service refrained from reaching this conclusion.

It argued that without a consistency assessment, it was unable to analyse the compatibility of the proposal with the EU’s climate objectives – a startling interpretation which casts doubt on the objectivity and impartiality of the Parliament’s lawyers.

ClientEarth’s Sarah Martin said: “What’s outrageous from a legal perspective is the blatant incompatibility of the revision with the CAP’s own rules, as well as other EU laws – like the European Climate Law. Any law student would be able to tell you that the mere fact that the European Commission failed to carry out a consistency assessment with the Climate Law is in itself illegal. How the Legal Service has failed to call this out is not clear and frankly alarming to us.”

As a civil society organisation, ClientEarth is unable to challenge the CAP’s revision directly. However, ClientEarth can bring a complaint to the EU Ombudsman, asking it to call the European Commission out on failing to respect peoples’ rights to information and to participation in the decision-making process when preparing the proposal.

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