THE European Commission is suggesting that early in the New Year it will begin the process of creating a new CAP for the years after 2020. 
For the first time, in the 43 years the UK has been a member of the EEC – then EC and now EU – the outcome will not be of crucial importance to farmers in Scotland, or the rest of the UK.
This will create the odd situation where the UK will still me a member state, but will have no interest in the single issue likely to dominate debate in the farm council. Equally, as long as the UK is a member state, the farm lobby organisations will be members of COPA, the body that represents European farm unions, but they will have no input or real interest in discussions about the future of the CAP after Brexit.
It might seem early to start the debate. Indeed, it is ironic that it will run in parallel, for part of the time, with the mid-term review of the current CAP and plans for some streamlining and simplification.
Early start or not to the process, it is a fair bet that it will go to the wire, as has every previous CAP reform. By starting early, the European Commission is hopeful it can bring some logic to the process, teasing out ideas that might be politically acceptable and then trying to shape those into a formal policy proposal.
In terms of timing, what will happen is a 12-week consultation in the new year. This will be around a series of options, ranging from largely leaving the policy as it is, which is probably a non-starter, to truly radical reform. 
Armed with the outcome, and hoping it delivers some measure of agreement between member states on the way ahead, the commission will attempt to draw up a document in the autumn setting out the way ahead. 
That will become a formal proposal for a new CAP in 2018. That will then fire the starting gun for debate between farm ministers, the commission and European parliament to deliver a new CAP in 2020. 
Ironically, the person who will drive the process, the farm commissioner, Phil Hogan, may not see it through, since his term in the job ends in October, 2019.
The plan will look at issues such as the future of direct payments, and whether the EU might move towards a risk management approach. 
Ironically, this could be in line with what is being discussed at Westminster for the UK. Change at an EU level would, however, be phased in and that will be more difficult to achieve in the UK.
The new CAP will have to take account of the recent Cork declaration of the future shape of rural development. The driver will be a call from the European Commission president, Jean Claude Juncker, for the CAP  to be ‘modernised and simplified’. 
This is a classic example of stating the ‘bleeding obvious’, since every CAP reform has been based around those same objectives. Most have failed to deliver on those aims – the possible exceptions being the MacSharry reforms, which ended open intervention, and the Fischler reforms, which introduced direct payments.
As this process moves into top gear, the realities of Brexit will become clear. For us it will be the fact that we will still be members of a club, but will have no input into the big debate. 
What is often forgotten, however, is that many EU member states will miss the UK when it comes to negotiating the future for the CAP. One thing they will miss will be the contribution of the UK to the EU budget. Its loss could potentially reduce the CAP budget by 15%.
At a political level, what will be lost is the role the UK has played over many years. It has always countered the power of the Franco-German axis and been a natural ally of many countries that wanted reform and to see the CAP budget brought under better control. 
It was a voice pressing for a CAP that was less centralised and bureaucratic. As those realities dawn during the long process of CAP reform, many member states may well find themselves wishing they had been more generous to David Cameron, when he was sought concessions that would have made the EU easier to sell to the British public in the referendum.