News

During 2019, Slovakia strengthened the food inspection, in just the first six months of the year more than 30,000 inspections of food were conducted in places of their production, with distributors, customers and vendors. Problems with the quality and safety of supplied meat from Poland as well as the spread of African swine fever infection in Europe were the main motivation to strengthen controls. Inspectors imposed over 1,000 fines, mostly medium-sized enterprises were fined. The most common violations were neglected hygiene, contaminated food, labelling errors, and occurrence of expired products.
More information is available here.

On 19/08/2019, Ireland started receiving applications for exceptional support granted by the European Commission together with Ireland to Irish cattle farmers totalling EUR 100 million. Applications can be submitted online until 08/09/2019. In addition, beef livestock farmers in Ireland have been organizing protests in recent weeks to strengthen the position of breeders in the Irish supply chain and increase meat buy-out prices. The Irish Government, the breeders and the meat processors therefore met last week to discuss further steps. One of the conclusions of the meeting was the agreement of the parties on the need to develop a model of price indexing in the beef market, and to enhance the transparency of the whole beef supply chain. The main problematic point of the discussion was the effort to set a minimum purchase price of beef, which could not be set due to competition rules. However, representatives of all three parties agreed on the need to limit the volume of beef imported into EU markets from third countries, as well as the need to ensure an adequate budget for the CAP post 2020. Furthermore, Ireland will try to secure a geographical origin mark obtained from grass fed cattle.
More information is available here and here.

Last week, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said that Ireland would consider rejecting a draft trade agreement between the European Union and Mercosur. The reason for the rejection of the agreement is the spreading fire in the Amazon forest and the lack of activity of Brazil in the fire liquidation. According to Varadkar, Ireland cannot ratify the agreement if Brazil fails to meet its environmental obligations. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has identified as the culprit of the fire environmental organizations that are trying to tarnish his name. Environmental organizations, on the other hand, have blamed Bolsonaro's supporters to set up a fire in order to expand the area of agricultural land in Brazil. The Irish Prime Minister was also supported by French President Emmanuel Macron. France is also planning to reject the draft trade agreement with Mercosur due to the spread of the fire and the attitude of Brazilian President Bolsonaro. In this context, Finland is considering imposing an embargo on imports of Brazilian beef into Europe. On the contrary, Germany opposed the position of Ireland and France - blocking the trade agreement with Mercosur is not considered by Germany a relevant response to the spread of the Amazon forest fire.

Malaysia seeks to conclude a trade agreement with the United Kingdom as soon as possible after leaving the European Union, with a view to ensure sales for its own palm oil production. According to Malaysia, the European approach to palm oil is misleading - the European Union’s arguments to limit support for palm oil use are excessive deforestation and the destruction of the landscape and the environment where it is produced. At the same time, the European Union has, after twenty years of negotiations, put forward a draft trade agreement with the Mercosur countries, which includes strengthening access to the European market for South American beef. However, according to Malaysia, beef production in these countries has the same impact as palm oil production in Malaysia. Malaysia has therefore described the European approach as misleading and hypocritical.

A new study, conducted by scientists from different countries around the world, warns against the ability of forests to no longer absorb carbon dioxide emissions after 2100 if its production continues to rise uncontrollably. Forests currently absorb about a quarter of all human emissions. However, in view of the increasing use of fossil fuels and deforestation, maximum absorption limits of forests could be reached, which would mean that forests will no longer be able to contain carbon dioxide.
More information is available here.