The European Commission published its proposals for the post-2013 CAP in October 2011. These are now being discussed with the European Parliament and the Council, and must be approved before the end of 2013. The current Common Agricultural Policy incorporates damaging instruments for developing countries, and the proposed post-2013 CAP reform does not contain much good news from a development perspective. Instead, we suggest that radical reform is needed. This is even more necessary than in the past because, firstly, there is a new context of high food prices and growing environmental problems calling current CAP measures into question and, secondly, the reform process of the CAP now has to take account of the European Union’s (EU) development cooperation policy objectives, which includes Policy Coherence for Development (PCD). The European Union is legally obliged to reconcile European interests with the development needs of low income countries.

Nicola Cantore, Sheila Page and Dirk Willem te Velde