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Last week, the European Parliament's Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development (COMAGRI) agreed on a list of articles of the proposal on the CAP Strategic Plans that should be re-discussed. These are all articles on which the EP Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (COMENVI) have shared competences - eco-schemes, rural development, AEKO measures, etc., and beyond these articles, as well as the definition of a true farmer, an article regulating the allocation of funds for measures in individual pillars, including coupled payments for production, transfers between pillars, or risk management tools. According to COMAGRI, discussions should not be reopened on the issues of capping of direct payments (April compromise should be maintained, allowing either mandatory ceilings or enhanced redistributive payments), external convergence, the criteria for coupled production payments (list of eligible sectors), or the minimum limits for small farmers. EPP Agriculture Coordinator Herbert Dorfmann (IT) said it would be crucial to work with COMENVI to avoid any risk of rejecting COMAGRI's opinion in plenary. According to Dorfmann, the European Parliament should adopt its opinion by the summer break of 2020, either in plenary vote in June or July 2020. The final agreement between the institutions should then be handled by Germany, which will chair the Council in the second half of 2020.

Six Member States of the European Union - Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Romania - have drawn up a joint declaration requesting the inclusion of transitional national aid provisions in the rules for the transitional period of the CAP. These subsidies (paid from the national budget) are used to balance selected commodities that have been disadvantaged compared to the full system of direct aids in the old EU countries by simplifying payments under the single area payment scheme for agricultural land. Transitional national aid has been proposed as a form of compensation to Member States that joined the EU in 2004 and 2007, the payment of these aids should end in 2020. Their future in the post-2020 CAP may not be definitive yet - the European Commission does not envisage the continuation of this support in its proposal, but Romania has proposed (in a reduced form) to maintain such support under its Presidency. The post-2020 CAP reform, including the fate of transitional national aid, will be discussed in the coming months, but the key question now is whether transitional national aid will be maintained for a transitional period. The European Commission does not foresee their preservation during the transitional period. However, according to CZ, CY, BG, HU, PL and RO, the transitional national aid provides a sense of certainty and continuity in the granting of the aid to the farmers concerned, if not continued; the income of the farmers concerned would fall significantly. In addition, according to these six Member States, transitional national support is paid primarily to small farmers with very low incomes from farming.

Executive Vice-President of the European Commission Frans Timmermans, who will be responsible for the implementation of the European Green Deal, which includes the Farm-to-Fork strategy, said last week that the EU Common Agricultural Policy needs a new direction to be able to meet new European environmental commitments. According to Timmermans, farmers must play a key role in this process, attention should be focused on the use of pesticides and endocrine disruptors, Member States should include support for environmentally friendly agriculture in their Strategic Plans, and attention must also be also paid to forest regeneration. Timmermans stressed the sustainability of agricultural policy, including the context of used feed for livestock.

Croatia will take over the Presidency of the Council after Finland from January 2020. Croatian Minister of Agriculture Marija Vučković said last week that she hopes that Finland will be able to reach an agreement in the Council of the European Union on as many articles of the proposal for the CAP after 2020 as possible; Croatia could try to reach a general agreement if an agreement is reached on the Multiannual Financial Framework post-2020 (MFF). Mrs Vučković also foresees that, during the Finnish Presidency, agreement will be reached within the EU Member States on the first part of the Commission proposal for a transitional period, namely the part governing transfers between pillars. The second part of the Commission proposal for a transitional period on the financial aspects could then be reached under the Croatian Presidency. Croatia is also more positive about Finland's proposal for a single allocation of climate and environmental measures from the overall CAP envelope (refusing to allocate these measures separately in the first and second pillars), according to HR this could be the first step towards simplification of the whole system of 'greening' the CAP. However, Croatia will not support the Commission's proposal to reduce the difference in the level of direct payments per hectare paid to individual EU countries (external convergence), as it would negatively impact Croatia, the sixth highest-paying EU country, on average around EUR 350 per hectare. According to Vučković, a reduction in favour of Member States where direct payments are below 90% of the EU average would jeopardize the viability of the Croatian agricultural sector.

The European think-tank Farm Europe organized a regular conference called Global Food Forum on 02-03/12/2019. A number of MEPs and NGO representatives attended the conference. Dacian Ciolos, Romanian MEP and President of the European Parliament's third largest political group, Renew Europe, said he was interested in being heavily involved in the post-2020 CAP negotiations, Italian MEP Paolo de Castro (S&D) and FNSEA President Christiane Lambert stressed the need to ensure an adequate budget for the CAP. Strengthening environmental and climate protection requirements cannot be met if the CAP budget is reduced. Farm Europe President Yves Madre called for a sufficiently stable economic working framework to allow farmers to better face market volatility and price fluctuations. According to Madre, the Common Agricultural Policy should be set up to operate for 10 to 15 years in order to allow farmers to plan their agricultural activities in the longer term.