On the face of it, the suggestion that the CAP could lose its budget seems like an April Fool’s joke. Except it’s not.

On Tuesday evening, a packed room in the Killashee Hotel heard of the European Commission’s “big idea”– a single budget for the entire programme of European spending, with each country given an allocation to spend as best it can. In addition, it seems member states will be given greater flexibility to pay into EU programmes from their national exchequers.

If this concept were to become reality, we can simplify one aspect of the CAP – it’s name. It would no longer be the Common Agricultural Policy, it would simply be the Agricultural Policy – the AP. This might sound enticing for Irish farmers on one level, as Ireland is one of the better-off economies in the EU, and prioritises farming more than most.

But what if our economy experienced a downfall, as it did in 2008? We saw nationally-funded farm programmes scrapped and slashed at the stroke of a pen and with little more than a shrug of the shoulders. It could happen again. Only weeks ago, the threat posed by Donald Trump’s erratic, aggressive trade policy to Ireland was dominating all our thoughts.

Ring-fenced fund

The good news from Tuesday’s meeting is that there is a strong coalition against Ursula von der Leyen’s proposal. Agricultural Commissioner Christophe Hansen only last week reiterated his commitment to CAP having a ring-fenced fund, and for two pillars. All 27 EU member state agriculture ministers are opposed to taking the CAP’s budget away from it. And COPA-COGECA, the umbrella farm and co-op organisation, is publicly protesting against the radical concept next week, when the Commission meets.

The timescale for all this is very tight. The European budget and CAP proposals are both expected in mid-July. Hansen was only ratified as Commissioner last November. And the drastic nature of the change in the EU’s budgetary structure means that politicians and farmers’ representatives will have to spend the next few months defending the integrity of the ring-fenced CAP budget.

Increasing the budget, if former Commission official Tassos Haniotos is to be believed, is a pipe dream. Extending the CAP into a third pillar for environmental payments similarly seems out of reach. Retaining the two existing pillars of direct payments and rural development will now require political capital from national governments and in the European Parliament.

Ursula von der Leyen has us all on the back foot. Perhaps that is the real intention of this single budget proposal.