European

Weighing up all the risks, threats and opportunities for France, two main issues underpin the work in this review:
- France clearly cannot address all these challenges on its own. Our national autonomy is real and should be as comprehensive as possible, but it is limited within a growing number of fields. This calls for a clear-sighted approach to priorities based on the geographical proximity of threats and on the interests of our national community. France’s European and American partners are essential for facing these challenges.
- France also has global interests. These relate to its status within multilateral organisations and its presence around the world (in particular in its overseas territories and exclusive economic zone), as well as the fact that the world is shrinking as globalised technologies and flows of goods and people generate more interdependence.
Within this context, its responsibility is based on its unique situation in objective terms. France is the only EU country (post-Brexit) that is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, a nuclear power, a founding member of the European Union and NATO, and that retains a full-spectrum and engaged military. As such, its ambition must be twofold: to preserve its strategic autonomy and to build a stronger Europe to face the growing number of common challenges.

On 18 March 2016, the EU member states and Turkey concluded an agreement on the return of persons having arrived in Greece irregularly – in the hope of reducing the number of irregular migrants coming into the EU. After months of member states being unable to find a common response to the rising numbers of new arrivals, the agreement is considered a breakthrough by many observers. In fact, the agreement stands for a broader shift in EU refugee policy, which now focuses on the themes of border security, camps and quotas. This goes along with a reorientation from the previously prevalent individual asylum application towards a system where groups of refugees are accepted voluntarily (resettlement). This trend carries serious risks for refugee protection globally. At the same time, however, new forms of cooperation are taking shape that could strengthen the EU asylum system.

"The objective of the Scenar 2020-II study was to refine and improve the identification of major future trends and driving factors – and the perspectives and challenges resulting from them – provided by the initial Scenar 2020 study (December 2006) on the future of European agriculture and the rural world. In this respect the study does not aim at evaluating the impact of potential policy changes but to compare how the agricultural sector might evolve under different, and somewhat extreme, pathways which, to a large, although not full extent, follow the assumptions of the first study.

To reflect elements of the public debate, without prejudging future policy proposals, three policy scenarios are proposed within Scenar 2020-II.

The first is a 'Reference' scenario, in which reference policy decisions are carried forward in the time period of the study. For illustrative purposes it assumes a 20% reduction of CAP budget in real terms, the implementation of a Single Payment System (SPS) as of 2013, full decoupling, a 30% decrease in direct payments (DP) in nominal terms and a 105% increase of the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD). Trade agreements are synthetically represented, e.g. the WTO Agreement is based on the December 2008 Falconer paper. To some extent this reflects similarities with the 'baseline' scenario of the first study.

The second is called 'Conservative CAP' scenario, and keeps the overall level of the budget devoted to agriculture but changes the balance between pillars. It assumes a continuation of the results of the Health Check (HC) after 2013, a flat rate (regional model) implemented at national level, coupling as HC, and a 15% decrease of direct payments in nominal terms, a reduced (45%) increase of EAFRD. Trade policies are maintained as in the Reference scenario.

The third is a 'Liberalisation' scenario, in which all agricultural trade-related measures are discontinued. The CAP budget is reduced by 75% in real terms, all direct payments and market instruments are removed, and there is a 100% increase of EAFRD. Like in the previous study extreme scenarios were chosen in order to test what would be the maximum range of impacts the agricultural sector would be faced with over the medium term.