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Spain will take over the Presidency of the Council of the EU from 01/07/2023, following Sweden, which has held the Presidency since January this year. The Spanish presidency will last until the end of the year, after which Belgium will take over. Spain presented its priorities for the Presidency last week - in the agri-food sector, these would specifically include strengthening food security and safety, promoting new technologies in food production (reduction of pesticides, improvement of irrigation systems, precision farming and new genomic techniques) and improving measures in the fisheries sector (decarbonisation of fishing activities, strengthening both fisheries and aquaculture and introducing multiannual quotas for certain species).
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In July 2022, following pressure from EU Member States and farming organisations, the European Commission proposed temporary short-term exemptions from the application of the rules on crop rotation and the conservation of non-productive elements on arable land. Member States may choose not to allow farmers to opt out, just as farmers may choose not to implement the exemptions if necessary. The impact of the measure therefore depends on the decision of Member States and farmers, but the measure has the potential to maximise the EU's production capacity of cereals for the food sector. The exemptions should only be applicable during 2023, and only apply to production that is necessary to address global food security concerns - so they cannot be used for planting crops that are commonly used for animal feed, such as maize and soya. But in the past week, a total of seven EU Member States - Latvia, supported by the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Lithuania and Poland - have called for the flexibility and exemptions to be extended to 2024, given the drought that EU Member States say is causing significant crop losses. However, the European Commission has indicated that it does not intend to support a further extension of the exemption from the application of crop rotation rules and the maintenance of non-productive elements on arable land. An impact assessment of the current exemption has not yet been carried out, but Member States are required to report on the use and impact of the exemptions on the environment and production by the end of 2023. Only then will the European Commission assess the real meaning of the exemptions.
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European policies are governed by the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), the EU's budget, which is adopted for seven years at a time. The current financial framework was approved in 2020 and entered into force in 2021. Since then, however, the Union has faced and continues to face a number of challenges, including the coronavirus pandemic and the ongoing Russian war in Ukraine. The last two years have seen not only a number of measures strengthened, but also, for example, the first use of the Agricultural Crisis Reserve, which was drawn down both last year and this year. Therefore, on 20/06/2023, the European Commission proposed, as part of the planned MFF review, targeted increases to the Union budget in several priority areas - in the Ukraine programme, in the envelope to address the internal and external dimension of migration, to set up the Strategic Technology Platform for Europe and to create an effective mechanism to address the increased costs of NextGenerationEU funding. The Strategic Technology Platform should help to ensure the EU's long-term competitiveness, with the capacity to generate up to €160 billion of investment. The Platform will build on existing programmes including, for example, InvestEU, Horizon Europe, the Recovery and Resilience Facility and Cohesion Funds. The investments should accelerate the delivery of projects in areas that are key to ensuring European leadership. The Commission proposal will be discussed by the European Parliament and the Council.
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The European Commission plans to present a proposal for a working framework for a sustainable food system during September/October. The proposal, which in a first stage should set rules for sustainable procurement, labelling of sustainable production and setting general principles of sustainability, should also aim to restore the balance between "excessive consumption of meat and dairy products and plant-based diets", according to the European Commission. The European Commission representatives stressed that the working framework should in no way lead to a ban on certain products but should only aim to restore the balance that the European Commission believes is currently lacking. In the negotiations with the Commission, environmental organisations have called for the Commission to include a stricter precautionary principle among the general principles of sustainability, in addition to the - according to environmental organisations - rather ambiguous concept of "no significant harm", which is associated with questionable results.

In June 2023, the European Commission published an analysis entitled " Comparative analysis of the CAP Strategic Plans and their effective contribution to the achievement of the EU objectives". In the new document, it compares the implementation of the new CAP 2023-2027 rules with that of the previous CAP 2014-2022, also provides a comparative assessment of the 28 CAP strategic plans of the 27 EU Member States, assesses the main features of the regulatory framework for the 2023-2027 period, including the process of approving the plans, and provides an overview of the financial allocations of the 28 strategic plans and the specificities of their implementation. The study also provides a first assessment of the relevance of the Strategic Plans and their contribution to the objectives of the European Green Deal. The Commission has also made several recommendations. For example, to achieve the CAP's environmental and climate objectives, the Commission believes that the green architecture of the strategic plans needs to be carefully assessed and changes to some of these plans need to be implemented, including strengthening the ambition of eco-schemes in some Member States. According to the Commission's findings, Member States have chosen to address several important needs identified in the CAP Strategic Plans through other policies and instruments outside the CAP - the Commission therefore recommends that evaluations be carried out not only on the CAP Strategic Plans but also on the national and EU policy instruments that contribute to these objectives. To assess whether the envisaged and intended administrative simplification has led to real changes in administrative burden, the Commission recommends a systematic assessment of the level of administrative burden by the EU-27.
The full study is available here.