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On 31/10/2019, the European Commission published draft rules for a transitional period, which should last for one year. According to the European Commission, the new Common Agricultural Policy should be implemented as of 01/01/2022. During the transitional period, farmers should follow the current rules approved for the CAP 2014-2020. The Commission has divided the proposal into two parts, as the flexibility regulation seeking to update the references needed to apply financial discipline and the rules for transfers between pillars was, according to Commission representatives, extremely technical. The proposal should inter alia allow Member States to revise their decisions on the implementation of voluntary coupled support (VCS) for 2020. Commission representatives called on the European Parliament and the Council of the European Commission to quickly adopt the proposal for a transitional period, ideally by the end of 2019 The second part of the proposal, covering the transitional period and ensuring continuity of CAP support under both pillars for 2021, should facilitate the transition to the new strategic plans, which should be adopted by the institutions by summer 2020. The second Regulation aims to adapt rules for continuing CAP support in 2021 with updated amounts for direct payments, rural development, and sectoral aid programs. The transitional measures should allow producer organizations active in the fruit and vegetables sector to decide to adapt the approved programs to meet the requirements of the CAP strategic plans or to replace the approved programs with new operational programs. In the case of Member States at risk of running out of rural development funds, the proposal could extend the rural development (national and / or regional) programs to 31/12/2021. If no extension is necessary, the amounts corresponding to the allocations not used in 2021 will be transferred in equal proportions to the years 2022 to 2023 in line with the proposal for the Multiannual Financial Framework. The amounts indicated in the proposal should be adjusted when the agreement on the EU Multiannual Financial Framework after 2020 is adopted.

The draft transitional periods have already been discussed by the EP Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development. Italian MEP Herbert Dorfmann (EPP) said that the European Commission had submitted the proposal too late, while at the same time asking for the rapid approval of the first part of the proposal. Similarly, Italian MEP Paolo de Castro (S&D) and German MEP Martin Häusling (Greens) stated that the Committee would need sufficient time to consider the proposal. German MEP Peter Jahr (EPP) and French MEP Anne Sander (EPP) said that a one-year transition period would not be sufficient, Czech MEP Martin Hlavacek (Renew) stressed the need to discuss a number of technical details and warned against estimating the results.

Also, the Special Committee on Agriculture, composed of Member States' national experts, has already discussed the Commission's proposal; Germany supported the introduction of a two-year transition period. Ministers of Agriculture will discuss the Commission proposal within the Council of Ministers on 18/11/2019.

The New York Times (NYT) published a report last week on the Common Agricultural Policy, its budget, and beneficiaries of CAP aid. According to NYT, a significant proportion of European CAP subsidies go to support rich farmers, influential politicians and corruption. NYT states that the European Union pays $ 65 billion annually in agricultural subsidies to support farmers and maintain the viability of rural communities. But throughout Hungary and much of Central and Eastern Europe, NYT funds are paid mainly to several high-ranking individuals, NYT mentions the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, or the mafia in Slovakia and Bulgaria. However, according to NYT, the European Commission is not addressing the problem of paying CAP aid to these specific individuals through, for example, tightening the control system. The NYT criticizes the Commission for proposing to strengthen the subsidiarity of Member States, which should then be able to make better decisions on how EU funds are spent. NYT identified the European subsidy system for agricultural policy as one of the largest subsidy programs in the world, focusing further on the situation in Hungary. According to NYT, during the reign of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, thousands of hectares of state agricultural land were sold to the prime minister's family and friends and subsequently enriched by CAP funds. NYT described the system of paying out European subsidies as a modern form of feudalism, where small farmers are kept under the control of the big ones. In this context, in addition to Viktor Orbán, the article mentions Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, who according to NYT last year from the EU thanks to the CAP gained over 42 million dollars. NYT also mentions that 80% of CAP aid goes to only 20% of beneficiaries, while in Bulgaria there are 100 enterprises receiving 75% of subsidies from the Bulgarian CAP envelope. In Slovakia, according to NYT, the Attorney General acknowledged the existence of an agricultural mafia; small farmers were allegedly blackmailed to sell land for which subsidies were paid. The article also commemorates the murder of Slovak journalist Ján Kuciak.
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Pascal Canfin (Renew Europe, FR), Chair of the European Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, supported the introduction of European legislation against deforestation last week. According to Canfin, it is no longer possible to talk about “if” European legislation will be introduced; the question is “what” legislation will be. The introduction of anti-deforestation legislation was also supported by Bernd Lange, Chair of the European Parliament's Committee on International Trade (S&D, DE). According to Lange, the new rules should apply in particular to the supply chains for cocoa, coffee, soybean and palm oil. Lange also supported the obligation of the necessary in-depth checks. Access to EU markets should be conditional on respect for the parameters of the new system. Executive Vice-President of the European Commission Frans Timmermans also supported the introduction of similar legislation at EU level, could be part of the European Green Agreement, which the Commission is expected to present within 100 days of taking up the mandate, and its implementation will be supervised by Timmermans. Any new European legislation, however, will have to take into account the views of the World Trade Organization, which prohibits the creation of unfair trade benefits for European producers (forest areas are growing in the EU, deforestation occurs outside the EU). The new rules would thus have to apply to EU production as well as to production from third countries.

Failure to approve the first Romanian candidate Rovany Plumb as Commissioner for Transport resulted in the collapse of the government on 10/10/2019, thereby blocking the process of selecting a new candidate. But in the past week, the new Romanian government received confidence, which subsequently nominated Adina-Ioana Vălean (EPP) and Siegfried Muresan (EPP) as Commissioner. The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, subsequently confirmed Adina-Ioana Vălean, who should become Commissioner for Transport as of December. Vălean is the current MEP, Chair of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, and a substitute member of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety. Vălean, together with the Hungarian and French candidates, must now have a public hearing in the relevant committees of the European Parliament; however, the President of the European Commission asked for a nomination for both Commissioner and Great Britain due to further postponement of Brexit. The UK initially decided not to nominate candidates due to the plan to withdraw from the EU by 31/10/2019. Von der Leyen called on the UK Prime Minister to nominate a Commissioner -designate, preferably applying for a candidate to ensure gender equality in the Commission - if its current team were approved, the gender ratio would be 15 to 12 without the UK. The European Commission could take up the mandate from 01/12/2019.

In spring 2019, the European institutions agreed on the text of a new directive regulating, inter alia, the dual quality of food and products in the European Union. However, members of the European Parliament's Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection stated that the text of the new directive was too weak during the interinstitutional negotiation process compared to the original proposed text of the Committee. The study by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission of June 2019, which found that a total of 9% of foods across the Member States of the European Union have the same label, but with different composition, has not clarified the ambiguities. However, the methodology used for the study was criticized for several reasons - for example, it considered only the markets of the 19 EU Member States, not all 28 (27). According to Polish MEP Róży Thun (EPP), the resulting text of the directive is very negative; Czech MEP Marcel Kolaja (Greens) proposes to add double quality to the list of directly prohibited unfair commercial practices. The Committee asks the European Commission to look further at the issue; the concept of 'significant differences' should be clarified; appropriate enforcement and control measures should be laid down; food comparison should take place in all, not some EU countries; and national requirements that may enable food manufacturers to change food ingredients should be mapped. However, the representative of the European Commission, Blanca Rodrígues, stated that the assessment of significant differences should be in the hands of the Member States, refusing to include double quality in the list of directly prohibited practices - according to the Commission.