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The Group of Environmental NGOs called on the Commission to align the objectives of the CAP proposed in 2018 with the new objectives proposed in the European Green Deal. Organizations criticize Member States' demand for legislative non-binding nature of targets. In mid-July, the Ministers of Agriculture of CZ, SK, HU, PL, BG, and RO supported the optional link between the CAP and the objectives of the Green Deal. Last week, Stella Kyriakides, Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, merely stated that objectives of the Farm to Fork should be set at EU level and not at the level of individual Member States.
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The European Union has supported a new promotional campaign called ‘Let’s talk about pork’ to the tune of around €7.5 million. The campaign has been launched in FR, ES and PT. The aim of the campaign is to support the production and consumption of pork and to raise awareness of animal welfare infringements. However, according to some, especially environmental organizations, subsidies to support pork production should be completely abolished; in the future, no EU funding should be used to promote meat products obtained from intensive EU farming.
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The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Organization for Animal Health are jointly calling on states to become more involved in the fight against African swine fever. It is especially important to quickly share the latest scientific knowledge, international cooperation, and report the occurrence of the disease. The organizations are also calling for a new initiative to control African swine fever in order to coordinate and protect food systems more effectively.
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The Council of the European Union has approved signature of a trade agreement on geographical indications between the EU and China. The agreement will ensure the protection of 100 selected EU agri-food geographical indications in China and vice versa. After 4 years of the entry into force of the agreement, another 175 geographical indications will be added to the list. The agreement also allows for the future extension of the list to include additional geographical indications.
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EU leaders discuss the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) after 2020 at the European Summit, they discuss the proposal of European Council President Charles Michel, who proposes a total EU budget of €1.074 trillion. Michel also proposed maintaining a budget of €750 billion for the EU recovery plan following the coronavirus crisis (according to the Commission proposal of 27/05/2020, €500 billion in direct grants, €250 billion in loans), and supported the introduction of a cap of €100,000 on direct payments and taxes on non-recycled plastics. During the three-day meeting, Charles Michel proposed, under pressure from some Member States, to reduce the share of direct grants under the EU recovery plan (initially €500 billion), but it remains unresolved how much the recovery plan should be adjusted. Countries refusing to increase the budget (AT, DK, NL, SE and, after Saturday, FI) supported an overall budget reduction for the recovery plan to €700 billion, €350 billion in direct grants, €350 billion in loans. It was also possible to keep the budget of €750 billion, of which €375 billion would be provided in the form of direct grants and the same amount in the form of loans. However, the reduction of direct grants is rejected by the countries most affected by the coronavirus crisis. The representatives met overnight until the morning hours of 20/07/2020, and at 6 o'clock in the morning they agreed to continue negotiations. A new round of discussions will start on 20/07/2020 at 14:00.