The majority in the EU Parliament today voted in favor of a backward-looking, climate and environmentally harmful reform of the Common European Agricultural Policy (CAP), thus ignoring the objectives of the Green Deal. And this only a few days after the same Parliament agreed on an ambitious climate law. It is now up to the Commission to stop this disaster.

"This is not a system change, but a system failure," said Manuela Ripa, MEP of the Ecological Democratic Party (ÖDP), commenting on the result of the vote. "So much despondency on the part of Christian Democrats, Social Democrats and Liberals is frightening. We are in the midst of a climate crisis that threatens our very existence and we have to watch as biodiversity and species diversity are drastically reduced and small and medium-sized farms are pushed to the brink of extinction. And all this for the benefit of an aggressive, industrial agriculture that continues to receive billions in taxpayers' money, only to then fail to act in the interests of sustainable agriculture and therefore not in the interests of the public. That is why I, like my group, voted against the proposed legislation.

The current version of the agricultural reform stipulates that 60 percent of direct payments are still distributed based on the area of the farm. This means that a large proportion of the money goes to industrial farms - and thus finances monocultures, factory farming and the massive use of antibiotics and pesticides. Small and medium-sized farms that really want to work sustainably are unfairly disadvantaged. Although 30 percent of direct payments are supposed to flow into environmental programs, these so-called eco-schemes also include numerous ineffective measures that would have no positive environmental effect.

"We will not stop fighting for a fair, sustainable CAP!" Manuela Ripa concludes. "We want to ensure that the Farm to Fork and Biodiversity Strategies become a binding part of the agricultural reform. Subsidies must no longer be awarded on a flat-rate basis according to area, but must support binding, Europe-wide standards for climate protection, biodiversity protection, greater animal welfare and pesticide-free agriculture. We must focus on small and medium-sized farms - and not throw taxpayers' money at wealthy landowners who do little or nothing to protect the environment. It is now up to the Commission to keep its promise with the European Green Deal and stop this CAP before it is too late.

We continue to fight: Sign the European Citizens' Initiative "Save Bees and Farmers" to send a clear signal to the decision-makers in the EU. Our agricultural policy cannot go on like this. "Save Bees and Farmers is campaigning for a Europe-wide ban on pesticides to protect biodiversity and species diversity:

savebeesandfarmers.eu/en