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The European Parliament's Committee on International Trade (INTA) is likely to support the draft trade agreement on quotas for imports into the EU of poultry meat from Ukraine. The rapporteur for the opinion of the Committee Enikő Győri (HU, EPP) stated that she would recommend to the Committee the approval of an agreement which should increase the import quotas for chicken breast from Ukraine by 50.000 tonnes. The EP Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development (AGRI) is also likely to support the conclusion of a trade agreement, but will require the introduction of specific safeguards to allow temporary suspension or reduction of tariff preferences in case of disruption of sensitive agricultural market sectors.
Draft opinion of the INTA Committee is available here, AGRI here.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on 19/10/2019 failed to convince the Parliament of Great Britain to agree to the agreement on Britain's departure from the EU. As a result of the vote by 322 votes to 306, Boris Johnson was forced to ask the EU to extend membership until 31/01/2020. With a view to reducing the risk of leaving without agreement, Donald Tusk, President of the Council, recommended the EU-27 to accept an application for extension, and Member States' ambassadors approved the extension of membership on 25/10/2019. According to the ambassadors of the Member States, Britain's EU membership should be renewed, but no agreement has been reached on a specific date for Brexit - France refused to support the extension of UK membership until the end of January 2020, other Member States agreed to the principle on a specific date. Another possible step for Boris Johnson could be to attempt early elections on 12/12/2019. The EU-27 Member States should decide on the date for Britain's withdrawal from the EU on 28-29/10/2019.

On 22/10/2019, the European Parliament approved a proposal for a Regulation to provide Britain with EU funds for 2020 in the event of a departure scenario without an agreement and provided that Britain continues to pay its contributions and accept the necessary controls and audits. The proposal was supported by 543 votes to 30, with 46 abstentions.
More information is available here.

On 14/10/2019, a coalition of 17 EU Member States, represented by the Ministers of Agriculture, supported the maintenance of the budget for the Common Agricultural Policy during the Council of Ministers; the coalition rejected the European Commission's proposals to cut the budget. According to AT, BG, CY, CZ, EE, FR, HU, GR, IE, LV, LT, LU, PL, PT, RO, SI and ES, the budget should be maintained for the next programming period at current prices for the current level of the CAP budget for the EU-27. The coalition's position during the Council of Ministers was further supported by SI, HR and BE. Finland is proposing to strengthen the proposed budget for the CAP under its Presidency, according to FI, the CAP should not represent 28.6% of the EU budget as proposed by the Commission, but rather 30.5 to 30.9% of the EU budget. Representatives of the European institutions stressed that, although this is an important signal, it is not the position of the prime ministers of the Member States. As a result, it will be them who will decide on the EU budget; the opinion of the Ministers of Agriculture is not necessarily in line with the opinion of the Prime Ministers. Irish Minister of Agriculture Michael Creed said that cutting the CAP budget could have a negative impact on the environmental measures introduced under the CAP. The Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, in response to the opinion of the 17 Ministers of Agriculture, supported the Commission's proposal to cut the budget, the draft was drawn up, according to Hogan, given the lack of funds in the EU budget in connection with the UK's withdrawal from the EU.
More information is available here.

The Ministers of Agriculture of the EU Member States discussed the Common Agricultural Policy during the Council of Ministers on 14/10/2019. The Ministers of Agriculture supported the progress report presented by Romania (here) at the end of their Presidency and agreed that the new delivery model and the green architecture of the CAP after 2020 must be further discussed in the light of a number of technical issues. Finland plans to focus the upcoming November and December Council of Agriculture Ministers on the issue of the new delivery model and green architecture of the CAP package. Member States have not yet reached a compromise between the parties, such as support for small farmers, setting up eco-schemes or allocations for fruit and vegetables schemes. Agriculture ministers supported the strengthening of environmental and climate ambitions, but stressed the need to ensure an adequate budget for the CAP.

On the issue of setting up the definition of 'genuine farmer', most countries have supported the Finnish definition, which proposes not to take into account the agricultural activities concerned or the farmer's overall economic activity.

The ministers also discussed the situation in the market for agricultural-food commodities. The market situation is generally stable, except for olive oil (high stocks, good harvest, low prices), beef (constant low prices since 2018), and sugar.

The countries of the enlarged Visegrad Group (CZ, HU, PL, SK, BG, HR, RO and SI) presented a joint opinion entitled "Forests, sustainable forest management and adaptation to climate change" (here). According to Czech Minister of Agriculture Miroslav Toman, forestry should be more involved in the CAP reform, and the process of approval of state aid should be accelerated.

The ministers' discussion also showed:

Support for the introduction of mandatory eco-schemes – IE, DE, PT, FR, NL, DK;
Supporting flexibility/voluntary implementation of eco-schemes – CZ, CY, MT, BG, LU;
Support for the modification of the definition of eligible hectares – IE;
Supporting the introduction of a voluntary definition of a genuine farmer – IE, AT, MT;
Supporting the introduction of a harmonised definition of a genuine farmer – BE;
Promoting harmonised rules on capping (with some flexibility) – IE;
Support for voluntary capping of direct payments – CZ, DK, RO;
Support for rapid presentation of rules for the transitional period – SK, ES, IT, DK;
Support for maintaining VCS payments – BG;
Support for termination / reduction of VCS payments – DE, NL, DK, SE;
Support for small farmers to comply with cross compliance – DE;
Support for the exclusion of small farmers from cross compliance – MT, BG, GR;
Support for the exclusion of small farmers from the system of sanctions – IT;
Support for the voluntary introduction of redistributive payments – SI;
Support for the inclusion of ANC / LFA in the 30% allocation for the AEKO measures – SI;
Supporting the achievement of external convergence of direct payments – EE, LV, BG;
Rejection of external convergence of direct payments – IT, SI, DK, NL, HR, BE;
Supporting the strengthening of the role of interbranch organizations – NL.


More information is available here, here and here.

According to unofficial information from the representatives of the European institutions, the European Commission is preparing a regulation on the transitional period for the Common Agricultural Policy. The reformed CAP should be in force from January 2021, but neither the European Parliament nor the Council of the European Union at the ministerial level of agriculture has yet adopted their own position on the Commission proposal for the CAP of June 2018. As the discussions on the CAP and the budget continue, the introduction of the new CAP in January 2021 is unlikely. According to the representatives of the EU institutions, a transitional period should be proposed for a period of one to two years, but a longer transitional period is not excluded either. The Commission is preparing two regulations for a transitional period - one aimed at the period for which the rules of the current CAP will continue to apply; the second, aiming at a gradual abandonment of the rules of the current CAP and a gradual transition to the new ones. The first regulation should be adopted before the end of this year, the regulation on the gradual abandonment of the current rules in favour of the new rules should be adopted by the summer of 2020.