News

Last week, the EP's Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development (COMAGRI) voted on an opinion on the "Sustainable Europe Investment Plan - how to finance the Green Deal". According to COMAGRI, the budget for the CAP should be maintained at the current level under the forthcoming Multiannual Financial Framework, all other measures related to ecological transformation should be financed from new resources and additional EU own resources. The opinion was adopted by 37 votes to 8, with 3 abstentions. The EP Committee on Budgets and the EP Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs will also vote on their positions in September 2020.
The COMAGRI opinion is available here.

The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (COMENVI) called on the Commission last week to take measures to ensure sustainable supply chains without deforestation, especially for imports of soybeans, palm oil, maize, beef, and cocoa to the EU markets. COMENVI calls on the Commission to reassess the impact of imported soybeans on deforestation and calls for an end to imports of biofuels produced from raw materials certified as high ILUC-risk (the indirect land use change). The opinion was adopted by 66 votes to 2, with 9 abstentions. The opinion must now be approved by the plenary of the European Parliament, probably 14/09/2020.
More information is available here.

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on 07/07/2020 that the Commission is preparing a new strategy for rural development in the EU. A public consultation on the topic will take place before the new strategy is published, and a public consultation is expected to start in the second half of 2020, probably during the autumn months. A new strategy for rural development should be presented in the first half of 2021.
More information is available here.

The European Court of Auditors (ECA) issued a report on 09/07/2020, according to which EU measures introduced to protect pollinators had little effect on halting the decline of pollinators. The ECA's report states that "Pollinators greatly contribute to increasing the quantity and quality of our food. In recent decades, however, wild pollinators have declined in abundance and in diversity, largely due to intensive agriculture and the use of pesticides." According to the ECA, the Commission did not put in place effective measures to protect pollinators, the ECA described the CAP as "part of the problem, not part of the solution". In response to the ECA's report, the environmental organization Pesticide Action Network Europe (PAN) stated that the European Commission, on the one hand, supports biodiversity restoration activities under the CAP, but still supports the development of intensive agriculture through area payments.
More information is available here and here.

On 07/07/2020, the European Commission adopted another package of exceptional measures to support the wine sector. The measures will allow companies to temporarily organize and implement market measures to stabilize the wine sector for a maximum of 6 months. The EU will also increase the contribution for all measures of national support programs by 10% to 70% and will allow companies to provide advances for ongoing distillation and crisis storage to cover up to 100% of costs.
More information is available here.