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The environmental NGO BeeLife, which aims to protect bee and other pollinator populations in the European Union, has published a report last week collecting and commenting on the most common arguments of Member States and other stakeholders that have not yet adopted guidelines to strengthen the protection of bee populations from 2013. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) developed guidelines six years ago already, but their implementation has not yet taken place because Member States have not agreed to set criteria for the approval of active substances. According to BeeLife, the most common arguments of opponents of the adoption include the fear of blocking further approval of new insecticides and a significant reduction in the approval of fungicides and herbicides; and that the guides are too complicated and impractical. However, BeeLife described the arguments as false - a stricter risk assessment will not prevent the approval of other active substances but will allow them to be better understood; According to BeeLife, the EFSA guidelines are not complicated, but consistent in the context of the assessment of all aspects of the individual active substances, including their toxicity.
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The new Lithuanian Minister of Agriculture, Andrius Palionis, who has been in the minister's office since last week, said he would also continue the fight to achieve external convergence of direct payments under the CAP reform post 2020. Therefore, he will continue to cooperate on this issue with Latvia, Estonia and Poland. According to the new minister, Lithuania will also not ban the use of glyphosate any time soon; Palionis said that its use should be restricted only in case of cereals. Other key priorities should include improving prices in the food supply chain.
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The Directorates General of the European Commission has put forward a proposal to extend the competences of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), which they believe could also address food fraud. In particular, it should focus on cases where food from third countries illegally enters the EU markets where it is subsequently falsely labelled as European Union production. According to EC Directorates General, these practices represent a loss of customs and tax revenues and a threat to the security of EU citizens. DG SANTE and OLAF have already started cooperation in this context, the first results should be known in early 2020. DG of Agriculture and Rural Development also proposes launching a public consultation to tackle unsustainable practices in the area of food production, within 100 days of the start of the new Commission (November 2019).
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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.
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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.