If we are to take full advantage of the potential of the rural world and recognise the socio-economic but also historical and cultural importance of agriculture in rural Europe, the multifunctional nature of European agriculture must be maintained. Defending the European agricultural model as an essential objective in the multilateral trade negotiations, is a strong political statement expressing the distinctiveness and importance of the European agricultural and rural model for European society as a whole. It is recognition that the debate on agricultural and rural policies cannot be limited to an exclusively technical kind. It also promotes the European agricultural and rural model on the international scene, a model that reflects the specific history, cultures and choices of European society and which is therefore not negotiable.
Nothing is further from the truth.
Political recognition at the highest level of the need to preserve this European agricultural and rural model is sincere. It echoes the concerns of our society and the socio-economic changes of a world increasingly affected by the globalisation of trade, a world where the search for and assertion of identities are perhaps especially strong because our societies are increasingly torn between the international and local levels. These two terms, which in the past sometimes seemed to be at odds with one another or at least compete with one another, are today totally complementary. A concept recognised internationally A lot of ink has flown since the official international recognition of the term. This will help pave the way for the next debates at the trade negotiations on agriculture.