News

On 24/10/2023, the European Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (COMENVI) adopted its opinion on Carbon Removal Certification. Similar to what the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development (COMAGRI) had already voted in late August 2023, COMENVI supported the consideration of not only removal but also reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. In doing so, Committee members supported expanding the definition of carbon farming to include carbon, nitrogen and methane reductions from biogenic carbon sinks including live biomass, litter, soils (including mineral and organic), enteric fermentation and manure management. COMENVI supported the inclusion in the opinion of rules on the use of certificates with possible links to corporate greenhouse gas inventories, emissions trading schemes (ETS) and the post-2030 carbon removal target. The opinion was adopted by 59 votes to 17, with 9 MEPs abstaining. The plenary of the European Parliament is expected to vote on the opinion in November 2023.
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The European Commission continues to work with the Sustainable Finance Expert Platform to implement the rules and develop new criteria for assessing sustainable finance, the so-called taxonomy. The taxonomy is a tool to create a notional catalogue of all economic activities and to assess which activities can be considered sustainable and which unsustainable according to the criteria. The assessment of sustainability according to the criteria of the taxonomy will be important for all entities that will, for example, ask banks to finance an investment plan. If the plan is assessed as an unsustainable activity, the bank may decide either not to lend the funds to the applicant or to lend them at a higher interest rate. Last week, the European Commission, together with the Platform, launched a stakeholder application mechanism. This is a questionnaire in which stakeholders can comment on existing taxonomy criteria or suggest areas for which criteria could be developed. The mechanism should be accessible in the long term, and its evaluation will be ongoing. The first evaluation should take place as early as 15/12/2023, after which a new questionnaire will probably be developed with a new date for comments.
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The Member States Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium have been hit by an epidemic of bluetongue which threatens sheep and cattle exports. The countries have called on pharmaceutical companies to speed up the development of a new vaccine. In the Netherlands, 2 600 cases have been recorded since September, affecting sheep, cattle, goats and llamas. The outbreak has spread across the border into Germany and Belgium in the last month.
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EU Member States voted on 13/10/2023 at the meeting of the Committee on Animals, Plants, Food and Feed (SCOPAFF) on the European Commission's proposal to extend the licence for glyphosate in the European Union for 10 years. In order to be approved, 55% of Member States representing at least 65% of European citizens would have to support the proposal. Only Croatia, Austria and Luxembourg voted against the Commission proposal, while Germany, France, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Belgium and Malta abstained. The rest of the countries voted in favour of extending the licence for ten years as proposed by the Commission. A total of 66% of countries, but representing only 55% of the EU population, voted in favour of the proposal. The Commission's proposal was therefore not approved at this stage because a qualified majority was not reached. The proposal now moves to the appeal committee, with a vote scheduled for 16/11/2023. In the meantime, the EP Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (COMENVI) voted on 24/10/2023 on a draft resolution opposing the renewal of glyphosate use in the European Union. In the end, 38 MEPs supported the proposal that glyphosate should no longer be supported, 40 MEPs opposed it and 6 abstained. The proposal to reject further support for glyphosate was thus narrowly rejected.
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On 19/10/2023, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on generational change in the farms of the future. The European Parliament expressed its support for young farmers and recognised their importance in the fight against climate change, biodiversity loss, depopulation of rural areas and food security. Young farmers and their families must be guaranteed a fair income and adequate living conditions in rural areas, and Member States should develop coherent and long-term rural strategies to promote generational renewal. Parliament believes that the European Commission should then evaluate all possible steps at EU level to improve young farmers' access to agricultural land and to improve transparency on the land market, including the creation of a farmland monitoring centre.
More information is available here.