News

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.

On 25/07/2019, the European Commission published a package of decisions on infringements of EU legislation. The European Commission called on eight Member States - DK, EE, GR, HU, IT, MT, PL and SK - to implement EU regulations on indirect land use change. These Member States have not yet fully put into practice the rules on enhancing the sustainability of biofuels (Directive (EU) 2015/1513), in September 2015 the EU Member States agreed to implement EU legislation by 10/09/2017 and notify the national implementing measures to the Commission. The Member States concerned now have two months to respond to the Commission's call. If it fails to do so, the Commission may decide to send a reasoned opinion.
More information is available here.

The Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (JRC) published on 22/07/2019 its own monitoring report of crop production and yields in the EU (here). According to the JRC monitoring report, drought particularly affected winter and spring crops in ES, FR, LU, DE, PL, FR, BE, NL, CZ, LV, LT and IT. However, given the expected high temperatures in the coming weeks, the effects of the drought could further increase. According to JRC data, in the first half of July 2019, only between 50-80% of the average rainfall fell. Nine EU Member States (PL, FR, ES, CZ, RO, GR, PT, FI and LT) have already asked the European Commission to pay advances for direct payments and rural development up to 70% of commitments to help the agricultural sector affected by drought. Some of these countries have also requested the possibility of abandoning greening measures. On 25/07/2019, the European Commission granted the requests (here). According to French Minister of Agriculture Didier Guillaume, it is necessary to help farmers affected by drought, especially those who have problems with the lack of feed for farm animals. France has therefore allowed its farmers in some areas to mow or have grazed some of the fallow land to tackle the lack of feed. France also asked the European Commission to approve a CAP payment of EUR 1 billion (to be paid on 01/10/2019) to help farmers buy feed for animals.