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Poland has confirmed 4 new cases of African swine fever (ASF) in domestic farms since March 2020. Three cases of ASF have been confirmed in the west of the country, one in a large commercial farm with 10,000 pigs, 215 km from the German border. ASF continues to spread among wild boars in Poland, with 1,058 new cases reported since the last update. Other cases were also confirmed in domestic pigs in Bulgaria, Lithuania, Romania, Russia, and Ukraine.
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Italy is introducing a new decree extending the mandatory labelling of the country of origin to pork in meat products (ham, smoked meat, etc.). The new decree should help the Italian pork sector, which has been significantly affected by the coronavirus crisis. Only food from the meat of animals born, reared, and slaughtered in Italy can be labelled as "100% Italian".
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During its Plenary Session on 10/07/2020, the European Parliament adopted an EP resolution on the draft Commission implementing regulation concerning the extension of the approval of the active substances beflubutamid, benalaxyl, benthiavalicarb, bifenazate, boscalid, bromoxynil, captan, cyazofamid, dimethomorph, ethephon, etoxazole, famoxadone, fenamiphos, flumioxazine, fluoxastrobin, folpet, formetanate, metribuzin, milbemectin, Paecilomyces lilacinus strain 251, phenmedipham, phosmet, pirimiphos-methyl, propamocarb, prothioconazole and S-metolachlor. Parliament states that the Commission's proposal is incompatible with EU law because it runs counter to the precautionary principle. The EP also condemns the serious delays in the re-authorization process and in the identification of endocrine disruptors, and calls on the Commission to withdraw the draft implementing regulation and submit a new proposal to the committee taking into account scientific evidence on the harmful properties of all relevant substances, in particular flumioxazine.
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China has suspended meat imports from Germany and the Netherlands due to several new confirmed cases of coronavirus in these countries. Flavio Coturni, Head of the Commission's Directorate-General for Agricultural Trade, said that China had not discussed trade restrictions with the Commission, but had contacted Member States individually. Germany is currently working to restore the possibility of imports into China, relying on the fact that the World Health Organization has not demonstrated the transmission of the disease through food.
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Agriculture ministers discussed the Common Agricultural Policy on 29/06/2020 during the Council of Ministers. The Croatian Presidency (replaced by Germany from 01/07/2020) has presented a progress report on the CAP negotiations (available here), but further technical negotiations will need to build on the work done so far. Negotiations will continue, especially on the topics of indicators, performance model, implementation of eco-schemes, control systems and penalties, definition of eligible hectares, sectoral interventions, and voluntary coupled support (VCS). During the discussion on the CAP, ministers welcomed the progress made during the Croatian presidency, supported the simplification of the CAP implementation mechanism, and expressed concern about how the objectives of the new biodiversity and Farm to Fork strategies would be reflected in the process of setting new CAP rules. In terms of these strategies, several agriculture ministers have supported the implementation of overall assessments of the impact of strategies on the agricultural sector. According to the ministers, the new environmental ambitions should also be reflected in the budget for the CAP.
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