The European Commission acknowledged on Thursday (6th December) that the reformed Common Agricultural Policy will not be in place until January 2015. The Commission had previously stood by its original deadline of 1st January 2014 for reforms to be put in place, despite a number of serious delays to CAP reform proceedings.

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Gwilym Jones, cabinet member for agriculture and rural affairs made the announcement in Westminster. He acknowledged that the original start date is now unfeasible as negotiations over reforms are taking longer than expected.  

The move has been welcomed by EU farming groups who said pushing the date back will give farmers and officials in the 27 member states time to effectively implement new regulatory changes introduced under the reforms, including changes to the direct payments regime.

However, although the Commission acknowledged changes to pillar one spending would not be ready to implement from January 2014, the envoy from Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Ciolos' cabinet said the Commission is optimistic that pillar two, rural development programmes will be ready to roll out by their 2014 original start point.

However, the NFU in Britain dismissed this. Speaking on Friday, Gail Soutar, NFU senior CAP advisor, said she "[does] not share the Commission's optimism." Ms Soutar elaborated, "We have consistently told the EU decision makers that there must be sufficient time after the CAP legislation is decided at a political level to implement the new regime on the ground."

She added, "We have written to Commissioner Cioloş asking him to put in place safeguards to ensure that there is no policy gap for rural development claimants in the period before the next rural development programme takes effect."

Last week, commentators said the possibility of a new CAP being implemented by January 2014 seemed impossibly remote after EU budget talks ended in failure. The European Council could not agree on the composition of the 2014-2020 EU Budget at its two day meeting in Brussels. The European Parliament has said it will not take CAP reform proposals further until a figure for the budget is established.

At the time, NFU president Peter Kendall said, "Even if the Budget is agreed early next year and the CAP reform is concluded under the Irish Presidency next summer, we would be left with six months in which to agree the implementing regulations and for the RPA to get its new systems in place."

Critics have said that a rush to implement the last range of CAP reforms in 2005 led to mix ups, which farming groups including the NFU say they are keen to avoid this time around.

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