News

The EU Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed will vote in July on a new wording of the Bee Guidelines document, which will decide on the future of certain active substances used in plant protection products. At the request of the European Commission, the document has been analysed by the European Food Safety Committee (EFSA). Environmental NGOs report that the newly written version of the document presents inadequate protection for bees and other pollinators. They point out that the document would allow the use of the active substance sulfoxaflor (a chemical produced by Corteva company), which the industry classifies as permitted sulfoximines, but environmentalists call it a banned neonicotinoid. The European Commission is concerned that increasing the number of banned plant protection products could lead to large-scale corporate disputes.
Learn more about EFSA analysis here.

Last week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that Germany will present a strategy for the gradual reduction of glyphosate use by the end of September 2019. According to Merkel, it will be possible to ban the use of the substance immediately if the exclusion process is organized sensibly. Last year, the German Ministry of Environment announced a plan to end the use of glyphosate by the end of 2023. The German industry expressed concerns about these plans because of the need for a longer transitional period for farmers to alternative solutions. Meanwhile, Bayer Company, a manufacturer of Roundup herbicide, is taking steps to reduce the impact of the substance ban as well as the large number of lawsuits.
More information is available here.

The Prime Ministers of 7 EU Member States (DE, CZ, PT, ES, LV, SE & NL), in a letter dated 20/06/2019, invited the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, to present a balanced offer for a possible agreement to the Mercosur countries. They joined the call of agriculture ministers from PL, IE, FR and BE, who expressed their dissatisfaction with the ongoing negotiations on the agreement last week. The EU has offered Mercosur quotas for products such as beef, poultry, sugar, ethanol, rice, eggs and egg products, garlic, pork and sheep meat, provided that Mercosur offers a satisfactory offer for European dairy products, wines and spirits. The EU-Mercosur Trade Agreement was agreed on 28/06/2019, according to initial information by Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development Phil Hogan, the EU and Mercosur agreed on quotas (for Mercosur) for beef (99.000 tonnes), sugar (180.000 tonnes) , and poultry meat (180,000 tons). Further details of the agreement are not yet known.
More information is available here.

On 18/0/2019, the European Commission approved, within the 37th wave of intervention sales, an offer to sell 162 tonnes of skimmed-milk powder (SMP) from intervention stocks at a minimum price of EUR 175.90/100 kg, an offer has come from Slovakia only. Since 13/12/2016, the Commission has approved the sale of a total of 394,625 tonnes of SMP, finally sold 379,674 tonnes of SMP. The stocks of SMP in intervention warehouses have thus been exhausted, the warehouses are now empty.
More information is available here.

EU Ministers of Agriculture met on 18/06/2019 at the Council of Ministers, the last one under the Romanian Presidency. Ministers were dealing with the issue of CAP reform post 2020 - the Romanian Presidency presented the Council's Progress Report on that matter (here). Furthermore, ministers discussed the results of the conference on eco-schemes, which took place in Spain on 29-31/05/2019 (here), biosafety issues, and the issue of maximum residue limits for some pesticides.

The Progress Report summarizes the Council's activities over the past six months. Further discussion will be needed regarding definitions, including the definition of a real farmer, young farmer or the definition of eligible hectares, as well as the Council's approach to compulsory capping. For the time being, the Council has agreed on some technical adjustments to sectoral measures (for example, to extend the list of other industries); to reintegrate payments for areas with natural or other constraints (ANCs) into AEKO measures (as opposed to the Commission's proposal to exclude ANC payments from envelopes for AEKO measures) or to strengthen Member States' flexibility in using risk management tools. However, a number of ministers pointed out that nothing is agreed on until the Council's final position is adopted.

The ministerial debate further showed:

The basic principles of cross-compliance in the area of new green architecture are necessary to be further addressed, and some mandatory requirements may eventually be abandoned (especially in the case of small farmers) - IE, PT, BG, HU;
Support for mandatory introduction of eco-schemes in all Member States - IE, DE, PT, FR, HU;
Promoting voluntary introduction of eco-schemes (or flexibility) - IT, SI, CY, DK;
Before moving on with the CAP, it is necessary to wait for the results of the negotiations on the Multiannual Financial Framework - EN, ES, CZ, LT, EE, PL, FR, FI, HR, LU, BE;
Refusal to cut budgets, especially for the second pillar - SK, CZ, PT, SI, EE, HR, BE, FR, IE, LT, LV;
Supporting voluntariness for capping or real farmers - DE, CZ, EE, SK;
Supporting promotion of VCS payments - SK, CZ, SI, BG, HU, SE;
Supporting termination of VCS payments or at least reduction of the envelope - DE, DK;
Promoting the empowerment of women in agriculture - ES, SE;
Support for achieving external convergence to the average of direct payments in the EU - CZ, LT, EE, HR, LV;
Inevitability of introducing a transitional period - FR, CZ, SK.

Agriculture and Rural Development Commissioner Phil Hogan consequently rejected the introduction of eco-schemes on a voluntary basis for Member States.

The Presidency of the EU Council will now be taken over by Finland (from 01/07/2019). The negotiations on the CAP will continue, issues that are still open are compulsory capping of direct payments, coupled payments support, external convergence, and the set-up of a new implementation mechanism or the rules of the new green CAP architecture. Finland will chair the Council until the end of 2019, after which Croatia will take over the Presidency.