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The French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety (ANSES) withdrew licenses for the registration of 36 glyphosate-based products and rejected marketing authorization applications for another 4 products containing this active substance. The volume of withdrawn products represents ¾ of all glyphosate-based products sold in France in 2018. France plans to introduce a ban on the use of the substance from the end of 2020.
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The environmental organization Pesticide Action Network Europe (PAN) issued a report on 10/12/2019, which states that the European Union does not meet its own standards in testing the effects of chemicals disrupting the hormonal system of citizens (endocrine disruptors) as a result; it cannot protect human health from the effects of active substances. According to the PAN report, 31 of the 33 active substances concerned were authorized for use without any scientific test. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the Commission were asked for their comments.
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The Finnish Presidency has presented a new negobox, a negotiating document for the EU post-2020 budget, proposing concrete figures for the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) after 2020. Last year the European Commission proposed an EU budget of 1,114% of Gross National Income (GNP), The European Parliament calls for a budget increase of 1.3% of GNP. So far, the Finnish Presidency has debated a budget between 1.03% and 1.08% of GNP, and has now officially proposed 1.07% of GNP. Finland also calls for a € 10 billion reinforcement of the rural development budget. According to the FI proposal, at least 25% of the total EU budget should be allocated to support climate objectives. The Finnish proposal for external convergence is in line with the European Commission proposal of June 2018 (closing the 50% gap with respect to the 90% of the EU average), convergence should proceed gradually over six consecutive years, starting in 2022. For Member States whose payments are below 90% of the average, a new amount should be set to increase their payments per hectare but this amount has not yet been proposed by FI (referred to as "X" only). Capping of direct payments should be mandatory from € 100.000 according to Finland, but it should apply only to basic income support for sustainability (it should not apply to eco-schemes, support for young farmers or coupled payments), also 100 % of labour costs could be deducted from the payment before the capping is applied. For the first time, the Presidency is moving away from voluntary capping. For the CAP, Finland has proposed to increase the budget by 2.1%, from 28.6% of the total EU budget to 30.7% (but under the CAP 2014-2020 it is 35.4%). The proposal will be discussed by the General Affairs Council on 10/12/2019, followed by the Prime Ministers and Presidents of the Member States at the EU Summit on 12-13/12/2019.

Norbert Lins, chairman of the European Parliament's Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, expressed his disagreement with the Council's decision on fundamental issues such as the capping of direct payments on its own without communicating with the European Parliament. Lins therefore intends to prepare a Committee resolution rejecting this procedure.

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.