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The Greens have expressed concern about the activities of the European Commission, which, in their view, did not remove legislative obstacles to the introduction of stricter rules on the use of pesticides harmful to bees. These rules were already drafted by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in 2013, but have not yet been implemented. MEP Bas Eickhout, Vice-Chair of the EP's Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, sent a letter to Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Vytenis Andriukaitis asking the European Commission to indicate what steps are planned to be taken to remove these barriers. In 2013, EFSA presented the criteria for assessing pesticide safety in the so-called Bee Guidance document. Member States' representatives at expert level have since been trying to agree on how strict these criteria should actually be. The European Commission has not yet voted on the document; probably for fear that the document might be rejected by Member States. New guidelines would tighten current EU legislation, as the EU and national authorities would have to take into account the long-term effects of pesticides on pollinator populations. Eickhout asks the Commission to have the issue discussed directly by the EU Council, thus avoiding the approval of criteria at expert level. EFSA is now re-evaluating the Bee Guidance document, the result should be known by March 2021.
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The coalition of environmental NGOs has launched a new citizens' initiative calling for a halt to the dramatic decline in bee populations in the EU. This Initiative calls on the European Commission to propose legal acts to phase out synthetic pesticides by 2035, restore biodiversity, and support farmers in the transition in agroecological and organic practice. The new Citizens' Initiative must now collect at least one million signatures in one year, then the Commission would have to deal with the initiative (however, even if the initiative is successful and the requested one million signatures are received, the Commission is not obliged to modify existing legislation). Representatives of the Commission said in response to the launch of the new Citizens' Initiative that as part of the proposal to reform the CAP post 2020, financial support for the beekeeping sector should be strengthened from EUR 36 million to EUR 60 million, as biodiversity is one of the main pillars of the newly proposed CAP.
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On 23/07/2019, Members of the EP Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development voted on the remaining two vacancies of the Vice-Chairs of the Committee. In the first half of July, German MEP Norbert Lins (EPP) was elected President, Portuguese MEP Francisco Guerreiro (Greens) was elected the first Vice-Chair, and Romanian MEP Daniel Buda (EPP) the Second Vice-Chair. The remaining two vice-chairman positions were decided by the Committee only on 23/07/2019, with Spanish MEP Mazaly Aguilar (ECR) as the third Vice-Chair and Finnish MEP Elsi Katainen (Renew Europe) as the fourth.

Group of Agriculture Coordinators for individual factions (H. Dorfmann /IT, EPP/, P. De Castro /IT, S&D/, U. Müller /DE, RE/, M. Häusling /DE, Greens/, L. M. Flanagan /IE, GUE-NGL/) was joined by Czech MEP Ivan David, who became coordinator for agriculture of the Identity & Democracy political faction.

The coordinators will decide, among other things, on the future of the report on the CAP Strategic Plans adopted by the EP Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development in April 2019. According to preliminary information, the EP Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety decided not to reopen the discussion about its February opinion on the CAP. However, the decision of the EP Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has not yet been made; the fate of the April report will be further discussed in the first week of September 2019 (04-05 / 09/2019). The final decision should be known no later than on 12/09/2019. The Committee now has three options - to submit its April opinion for approval in plenary without amendment; reopening the debate on the opinion either in Committee or in plenary through amendments; or completely reject the April opinion and start working on a new version.

According to some sources, the rules for the transitional period, if the institutions fail to agree on a reform of the CAP post 2020 in good time, should be discussed in October or November 2019. The European Commission has been working on the rules since April this year, but no proposal has been submitted to the European Parliament or the Council. Setting up of the transitional period rules is one of the main priorities of the Finnish Presidency, ready to start discussions as soon as the Commission presents its proposal. On 23/07/2019 during a meeting of the EP Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, the Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development stated that the Commission was ready to submit proposals, but also confirmed that the Commission does not plan to submit it before autumn 2019.

French Minister of Agriculture Didier Guillaume and Czech Minister of Agriculture Miroslav Toman met in the Czech Republic last week to discuss the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy post 2020. Both ministers agreed that ensuring an adequate budget for the CAP post 2020 should now be a top priority at EU level. The positions of the two ministers on the CAP reform are, according to their statements, approximately 90% identical, with the Czech Republic again supporting the introduction of the capping of direct payments on a voluntary basis only.