On 19^th and 20^th of July 2010 the European Commission (EC) organized a conference designed to summarize the public contributions received in the open consultation process and to discuss on the possibilities to be explored in building the future policy.

Due to the quality of the OPERA roundtable consultations and the awareness raising of our activities, in addition to the written contribution on the future of CAP submitted to the EC, OPERA has been invited to participate to this important conference despite the fact that it had been involved in this field only for three months (since April 2010).

During the conference works, the Commission continued to be in a “listening mode” giving the possibility to all stakeholder representatives to put forward their vision on the objectives and instruments to be included in the future CAP. Rather than selecting any approaches or favoring in the debate any instruments, the EC has chosen to continue the open consultation with this event in order to collect as many opinions, and test reactions of possible avenues. EC has been saving on its energy for negotiations with stakeholders for the second round of consultations after the issue of the Communication in November 2010

In the discussions OPERA has been actively supporting the need to ensure food security by enhancing productivity; a stronger policy to promote research and innovation and the need to recognise the economic, social and environmental nature of the public goods provided by agriculture.