News

Prior to the forthcoming meetings of the Council of Agriculture Ministers (26/04/2021) and the trilogue on the CAP strategic plans (30/04/2021), a new compromise was presented last week for the allocation of funds for eco-schemes. The budget for eco-schemes is one of the points on which agreement has still not been reached, Parliament insisted on 30% of the envelope for direct payments, while the Council insisted on 20%. Portugal has therefore introduced a new compromise, according to which the budget for eco-schemes in 2022 and 2023 should reach 22% of the envelope of the first pillar, gradually increasing to 25% in 2025. Portugal also warned that if the institutions will not agree on the proposed compromise, the timetable for approving the CAP reform (May-June 2021) could be jeopardized. The next super trilogue on the CAP should take place in the week of 24-28 / 05/2021, and an extraordinary meeting of the Council of Agriculture Ministers during the week of the May super trilogue is not ruled out to allow for a more flexible adjustment of the Council's negotiating mandate.
More information is available here.

Last week, the Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development discussed with representatives of European farmers the future set-up of the CAP as well as cage farming and the End of the Cage Initiative. The Commissioner said that his statement on 15/04/2021 during a hearing by the EP's Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development that the Commission would make every effort to ban cage farming in the EU was a misunderstanding. According to the Commissioner's revised statement, the Commission supports the move towards more sustainable systems, enhanced animal welfare and enriched farming, but not yet a ban on cage farming as such. However, the Commissioner supported cage-free laying hen systems, emphasizing that there are around 4,000 farms in the EU keeping tens of thousands of laying hens in conventional farms (50,000-80,000 / farm) and 8,000 farms keeping around 5,000 laying hens in cage-free systems / business. According to the Commissioner, it is necessary to protect those 8,000 farms with a smaller number of farmed animals, the large farms are not considered by the Commissioner as agricultural enterprises, but as industrial enterprises. The Commissioner also drew attention to the issue of the decline of small and medium-sized agricultural holdings in the EU. According to the Commissioner, the number of these companies has fallen by 4 million in the last ten years, in Poland alone it was 190,000. Therefore, according to the Commissioner, there is a need to support more small farms, in this context he has again criticized large industrial farms, which have access to a large share of European agricultural subsidies.
More information is available here and here.

On 21/04/2021, the European Commission adopted a delegated act on sustainable financing, the so-called taxonomy. It is a package of measures to help improve the flow of money towards sustainable activities in the EU, according to the Commission. The package will allow investors to reorientate investments towards more sustainable technologies and businesses, thus contributing to the goal of achieving climate neutrality by 2050. The package consists of three parts - a delegated act on EU climate taxonomy, a proposal for a directive on corporate sustainability reporting, and six delegated amending acts on investment and insurance advice. The delegated act on taxonomy must now be formally adopted by the Commission (at the end of May 2021), until then it will be translated into all official EU languages. It will then be reviewed by the European Parliament and the Council (within a four-month, maximum six-month period). The proposal for a directive on corporate sustainability reporting will now be discussed at European Parliament and Council level. The remaining six acts on investment and insurance advice will now be reviewed by Parliament and the Council (within a three-month, maximum six-month period) and should apply from October 2022.
More information is available here.

On 21/04/2021, the European institutions reached a preliminary agreement on the objectives of the European climate legal framework, which are part of the European Green Deal. The legal framework for climate complements the goal of achieving climate neutrality by 2050 by setting a target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. The Commission and the Council supported a reduction of 55%, Parliament was more ambitious, supported 60%. During the last trialogue, however, the institutions reached a preliminary agreement, eventually agreeing on 55% (compared to 1990).
More information is available here and here.

The EP's Agriculture and Rural Development (COMAGRI) and Environment (COMENVI) committees last week launched a debate on the first set of compromise amendments. The first round of the debate is focused on less politically problematic topics, such as consumption date labelling, unfair commercial practices, or food contact materials. Future discussions on livestock production, meat consumption, new breeding techniques, and linking the objectives of the European Green Deal to the CAP should pose the greatest problems. Environmental organizations are now pushing rapporteurs Herbert Dorfmann (EPP, IT, COMAGRI) and Anju Hazekamp (GUE / NGL, NL, COMENVI) to drop their current requirement to carry out impact assessments to ban the use of chemical pesticides. According to environmental organizations, the Farm to Fork strategy does not set legally binding targets, so the requirement for an impact assessment is not appropriate. Voting in the COMENVI and COMAGEI committees is scheduled for early June 2021.