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The European Commission will present European climate legislation on 04/03/2020. Climate legislation will set a target for achieving climate neutrality by 2050. The impact assessment should be published in August or September 2020 - here it should be decided whether to set a 50 or 55% reduction target for 2040. Scotland has already committed itself to achieving zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045 and reducing emissions by 75% by 2030.

Last week, German Minister of Agriculture Julia Klöckner said that the new Common Agricultural Policy must introduce ambitious environmental and climate to prevent further deterioration of the current situation. According to Klöckner, uniform measures and guidelines should be put in place to prevent the deterioration of the current situation, and that will on the contrary reinforce environmental ambitions. Eco-schemes should therefore be mandatory in all Member States, and the minimum budget that Member States must allocate to eco-schemes should also be allocated. Furthermore, Klöckner supported the introduction of a harmonized uniform share of non-productive areas for agricultural land (the European Commission seeks to introduce at least 10% of the area of agricultural land for non-productive and landscape features). The emphasis on animal welfare should also be strengthened.

Poland is organizing a conference on external convergence, the conference will take place on 24/02/2020, and Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development Janusz Wojciechowski will also be present. Eleven Ministers of Agriculture from Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal Romania and Slovakia were invited to the conference. The meeting will only take place 4 days after the extraordinary European Summit to discuss the Multiannual Financial Framework. The issue of external convergence is, together with the capping of direct payments, one of the topics falling within the prime minister's competence.

The European Court of Auditors (ECA) published an analysis on 05/02/2020 focusing on assessing the reduction of risks associated with the use of pesticides in the EU. However, according to the ECA's results, the EU is achieving limited results in terms of risk reduction. The timing of the report may affect further discussions - the report was published two months before the planned launch of the Farm to Fork Strategy, which states, inter alia, the need to reduce the amount of pesticides used and the risks associated with their use. The ECA called on the Commission to put more pressure on the Member States to properly implement the current rules and to transpose European legislation into national legislation. According to the ECA, integrated pest management should be included in cross compliance requirements under the new CAP.
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On 19/02/2020, the European Commission should publish a Communication on Digitization called ‘Europe fit for the digital age: Towards a truly European digital society’. Digital transformation should become a key aspect in achieving the objectives of the European Green Deal - it will help to the decarbonisation, contribute to improving the quality of life and climate. In the agricultural sector, this will mean focusing on precision farming, sensors, drones, and reducing input to agriculture. This should make agriculture more environmentally friendly. However, access to the Internet for all farmers will be a key barrier - currently only 52% of farmers in the EU have Internet access.