STRATEGY FOR AGRICULTURAL AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN UKRAINE UNTIL 2030 (the first public version of the draft): COMPLIANCE WITH EU CAP REQUIREMENTS

Abstract

Granting EU member states greater freedom in the development and implementation of national Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) strategic plans should not be perceived as CAP’s "renationalization". The European Union defines the main parameters of agrarian and rural development (goals, types of intervention, requirements), and member states develop their National CAP Strategic Plans (NSPs) within the given structure. Careful following of the given CAP architecture in the NSPs is controlled by the European Commission. Ukraine should take this into account when developing an agrarian development strategy and implement the justified context of "nationalization" without promoting its excess. Identified discrepancies between the EU CAP key objectives and indicators and those provided for in the draft Strategy for Agricultural and Rural Development in Ukraine for the period until 2030 (as of March 15, 2024) foreground the proper implementation of the EU CAP principles in the national agrarian policy. The objectives in the draft Ukraine’s Strategy more or less correspond to the CAP, but the limitation of environmental objectives is obvious – one goal is provided for compared to three in the CAP. This indicates a low level of perception in Ukraine of the ecological problems of agri-food complex development and declares that during the war and in the early post-war period (until 2030) these objectives will be considered "less than relevant" for the time being, which is difficult to agree with.

In the draft Ukraine’s Strategy, the indicators mainly reflect the economic achievements of agricultural producers (the shares of production and export in the world volume, labor productivity, the share of profitable enterprises); the social ones sometimes do not depend on agriculture; ecological indicators are presented to the least extent (only two). There is a limitation in the assessment of the results of the implementation of the Strategy. The proposed supplementing the draft Strategy for Agricultural and Rural Development with 19 indicators used in the CAP and NSPs of the EU member states will be a step forward for Ukraine in the context of harmonizing the institutional framework of agrarian and rural development on the path to European integration.