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On 08/07/2019, the Lithuanian Parliament approved a proposal for a 15% tax cut on spirits. If approved by the president, it will come into effect in early August. In recent years, the Baltic States have followed the recommendations of the World Health Organization and increased taxes on hard alcohol as part of an effort to reduce alcohol consumption. However, Estonia reduced taxes on spirits by 25% in May, and Lithuania was therefore afraid of the financial loss of EUR 92 million caused by the purchase of products abroad. The Lithuanian Ministry of Health proposes limiting the promotion and availability of spirits to reduce alcohol consumption.

The European Union has introduced stricter rules for the authorization of pesticides, triggering a wave of criticism from third countries. Over 100 of them - including the US, Australia and Brazil - have turned to the World Trade Organization (WTO) with the criticism. According to critics of the EU, the European Union is introducing trade barriers by adopting these rules, doing harm especially to the import of wheat, coffee, palm oil, bananas and sweet potatoes into the EU, due to low-set pesticide residue limits.
More information is available here and here.

The opposition Irish party Sinn Féin has drafted a proposal rejecting the agreement with Mercosur. The proposal was adopted by 84 Irish Members, 46 were against, but it is not an official government position. Ireland is especially afraid of the threat that is posed by cheap beef imports. Many farmers and environmental organizations also oppose the agreement, while the dairy sector welcomes it thanks to the high quota for cheese exports. The EU-Mercosur agreement is a so-called "mixed agreement" which must be adopted unanimously by all Member States. The agreement will be subject to legal scrutiny over the coming months and subsequently translated into all European languages, which will take approximately one year. Subsequently, it will be submitted to the European Parliament and the Council for approval, and 40 national and regional parliaments across the EU must also accept it.

The Chapters of the Mercosur Trade Agreement is available here.
The proposal of the Irish MPs is available here.

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.