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The European Commission launched the High Level Group on Sugar in November 2018. In July 2019, the group presented its final report providing a summary of the sugar market situation, both in the context of market transparency and in the context of the ban on neonicotinoids. The aim of the group was to discuss the current situation on the sugar market and to negotiate possible solutions and policy measures. Three high-level group meetings took place in 2019, and the final report will be presented on 15/07/2019 during the Council of Ministers. The sugar market was affected by world sugar overproduction in the first marketing year after abandoning sugar quotas (2017/2018), while EU sugar production increased by 25%. Strengthening sugar production and exports has led to a fall in prices both at EU and at world level, and the sugar sector has not yet recovered from this decline. In the 2018/2019 fiscal year, profit will decline, mainly due to bad weather, sugar prices in May were around EUR 320 per tonne. Reducing the sowing area of sugar beet in the EU is also expected. The report provides information on Member States' different approaches to measures stabilizing the sugar market - while BR, HR, HU, IT, AT, PL, RO, SE and ES have repeatedly called for measures to be put in place for stabilization, in particular the introduction of a private storage scheme, other Member States incl. DK, DE, NL, PT, UK and SE support not introducing these measures, in order to allow the sector more time to stabilize. No specific measures are proposed by the report. The report also addresses the risks associated with the Mercosur trade agreement and Brexit.

Members of the European Parliament voted during the first plenary session of the new European Parliament on 02-04/07/2019 on the composition of the EP Presidency and of individual EP committees. David-Maria Sassoli, an Italian member of the Socialists & Democrats bloc, has been elected as the next president of the European Parliament after two rounds of voting. In the second round he received 345 votes, conservative Jan Zahradil from the Czech Republic got 160 votes. Vice-Presidents of the European Parliament: Mairead McGuiness (IE, EPP), Pedro Silva Pereira (PT, S&D), Rainer Wieland (DE, EPP), Katarina Barley (DE, S&D), Othmar Karas (AT, EPP), Ewa Bozena Kopacz (PL, EPP), Klara Dobrev (HU, S&D), Dita Charanzová (CZ, RE), Nicola Beer (DE, RE), Livia Jarok (HU, EPP), Heidi Hautala (FI, Greens), Marcel Kolaja (CZ) , Greens), Dimitrios Papadimoulis (GR, GUE / NGL), and Fabio Massimo Castaldo (IT, no party). Positions of Quaestors, who have an advisory vote at the Presidency, were taken by Anne Sander (FR, EPP), Monika Beňová (SK, S&D), David Casa (MT, EPP), Gilles Boyer (FR, RE), and Karol Karski (PL, ECR).

In addition to the composition, the MEPs approved the size of the committees. The EP Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development (COMAGRI) will have 48 full members and 48 substitutes. Among the full members, there are re-elected MEPs Daniel Buda (RO, EPP), Herbert Dorfmann (IT, EPP), Norbert Lins (DE, EPP), Eric Andrieu (FR, S&D), Paolo De Castro (IT, S&D), Maria Noichl (DE, S&D), Ulrike Müller (DE, RE), Elsi Katainen (FI, RE), Martin Häusling (DE, Greens), Bronis Ropé (DE, Greens), and Luke Ming Flanagan (IE, GUE/ NGL). Romanian MEP Dacian Ciolos (former Minister of Agriculture and Romanian Prime Minister, former Commissioner for Agriculture) and three MEPs from the Czech Republic - Martin Hlaváček (RE), Ivan David (ID) and Veronika Vrecionová (ECR) are the newly elected full members. The Czech Republic and Slovakia will also have substitute representatives in COMAGRI, namely Michaela Šojdrová (CZ, EPP), Miroslav Číž (SK, S&D), and Michal Wiezik (SK, EPP).

The EP Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee (COMENVI) will have 76 full members and 76 substitutes. Full members include Stanislav Polčák (CZ, EPP), Michal Wiezik (SK, EPP), Monika Beňová (SK, S&D), Martin Hojsík (SK, RE), Jan Huitema (NL, RE), Alexandr Vondra (CZ, ECR), or Bas Eickhout (NL, Greens). Substitutes' posts were taken, among others, by Ivan David (CZ, ID), Ondřej Knotek (CZ, RE), Kateřina Konečná (CZ, GUE / NGL), and Ulrike Müller (DE, RE).

The vote on the chairman and vice-chairmen posts of each committee will take place at the constitutive committee meeting in the week of 09-11/07/2019. Among the candidates for the post of the COMAGRI Chairman are Paolo De Castro, Italian S&D MEP, and Herbert Dorfmann, Italian EPP MEP. A new nationalist faction, Identity & Democracy (ID), also seeks to win the post of the Chairman of COMAGRI.
More information is available here.

On 02/07/2019, European leaders formally nominated the German candidate, Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen, as President of the European Commission. Thus, von der Leyen is likely to succeed Jean-Claude Juncker, the current President of the European Commission. Leyen was born in Brussels, where she lived until she was 13 years old. Then she and her family moved to Hanover, Germany. Leyen is the only minister who holds the office for the entire period of Angela Merkel functioning as Chancellor. The European Parliament will vote on the approval of Ursula von der Leyen during the second EP plenary session on 15-18 / 07/2019. The candidate for the President of the European Council after Donald Tusk is Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel.

Finland took over the Presidency of the EU Council from Romania in early July; FI will chair the Council until the end of this year, and then will be replaced by Croatia from January onwards. Finnish Agriculture Minister Jari Leppä said that Finland would try to get as far as possible in the negotiations on the Common Agricultural Policy, but no specific targets and dates for reaching an agreement were set. According to Leppä, many factors are currently influencing the debate on the CAP, bringing a number of uncertainties to the negotiations - in particular the ongoing negotiations on the post-2020 Multiannual Financial Framework, which is the Union's 2021-2027 budget, and the ongoing negotiations on the UK leaving the EU. In addition, the Presidency will also be affected by changes in the European institutions, namely the European Parliament elections in May 2019, which led to the replacement of more than 65% of MEPs, and the changes of Commissioners and Commission President, which are now being discussed. According to Leppä, Finland should focus on the issue of new green architecture, setting of eco-schemes (climate and environment regimes in the I. CAP pillar) and the new policy implementation mechanism. Finland is also ready to start discussing the rules for the transitional period in case the CAP negotiations are extended. According to Finland, the Multiannual Financial Framework could be negotiated by the end of 2019, according to a document from the Finnish Presidency; Finland could in this case seek to reach a general agreement on the CAP also by the end of the year.
Finnish Presidency document available here.

The EP Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development (COMAGRI) adopted an opinion on the CAP Strategic Plans in April 2019 but the opinion was not approved by the EP plenary. However, after the European elections and the new COMAGRI composition, the fate of the April opinion is unclear. The position of the current COMAGRI could be even more fragmented than it was in 2014-2019, given the strengthening of environmentally-minded and nationalist factions. According to initial information, the EP's Greens political group will seek to revise the April opinion, followed by a vote in COMAGRI and then in the plenary where new amendments should be put to the vote. A similar position as the Greens is also supported by the second-largest faction of EP S&D. In the opinion from April, the Greens and S&D most criticize the lack of ambition of the parties to strengthen the environment and climate protection, but also the overly mild wording of the proposal for parties to the mandatory capping of direct payments per hectare. To date, the third largest faction Renew Europe (RE) has not yet decided whether the report from April should be adopted, or whether it should be revised - an internal negotiation within the RE should take place for this matter. RE is however likely to try to reach an agreement with the other three largest factions, the EPP, the S&D and the Greens.