During a session of the European Commission in Brussels July 10, the Commissioner for Agriculture Franz Fischler presented a proposal for the reform of the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

In accordance with the reform, the principles governing the financing of agriculture would change. According to observers, this should help close negotiations with EU candidate countries timely by the end of this year. The proposed reform may, as one of the EU diplomats said, decrease the fears of net payers to EU coffers, in particular Germany, that enlarging the Union to include the poor Eastern European countries might increase the agricultural budget to a level that would be impossible to finance. In addition, if it is possible to push through the proposal to spend less EU funds on direct subsidies for production and more on the development of rural areas, it will be easier to integrate with the candidate countries' agricultural sectors. "The commission's proposal...will have a positive side effect-it will facilitate the enlargement of the Union," said Fischler. The CAP reform has been criticized by France and the EU farmers' unions. Germany and the Netherlands clearly indicated that they would support EU enlargement at the December summit in Copenhagen if at the same time a schedule of cost reduction for the CAP is approved. The candidate countries have welcomed the planned reform, because they believe it offers them more favorable conditions than they previously assumed for utilizing CAP after joining the EU. Fischler said that farmers from candidate countries would receive the same funds as the EU farmers are getting now, in 2011 and not in 2013 as was planned earlier. Commenting on the information from Brussels, head of the Sejm Committee