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Last week, Belgian MEP Marc Tarabella (S&D) said he would support the rejection of the legislative proposal on the CAP presented by the European Commission in June 2018 in the event of his re-election to the European Parliament (23-26/05/2019). The Commission's legislative proposal is unsatisfactory; it should be rejected and re-drafted, according to Tarabella. He disagrees, for example, with the Commission's proposal to introduce national strategic plans, which, according to Tarabella, could lead to a renationalisation of the entire EU agricultural policy. In his opinion, the agricultural sector needs a long-term vision, and therefore he rejects the constant reforms and fundamental changes introduced during each new programming period.

Confagricoltura, one of the most important non-governmental agricultural organizations in Italy, refused the introduction of mandatory capping of over EUR 100,000 as well as deduction of only 50% of staff costs in response to the adopted opinion of the EP Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development (COMAGRI) on Strategic Plans after 2020. COMAGRI adopted its opinion on 02/04/2019, in addition to introducing mandatory capping of over EUR 100.000 (which would not have to be introduced if the Member States allocate at least 10% to redistributive payments) and deducting 50% of staff costs, COMAGRI proposes to exclude from capping climate and environmental schemes (so-called eco-schemes) and payments for young farmers. However, according to representatives of Confagricoltura, the limit of EUR 100,000 is too penalizing, especially for large companies that invest in new technologies. Furthermore, Confagricoltura drew attention to a document from October 2018 adopted by a total of 14 agricultural organizations across EU Member States, with Confagricoltura, Italy, organizations from CZ, SK, FI, DK, BG, RO, LT, EE and LV, which refuses mandatory capping while pointing out the fact that 80% of the subsidies go to 20% of the beneficiaries, who are responsible for 80% of EU agri-food production. Confagricoltura also disagreed with COMAGRI's proposal to deduct only 50% of staff costs (the European Commission proposes to deduct 100% of the costs). According to Confagricoltura, capping will mainly concern large employers and thus only 50% of staff costs could have a negative impact on employees and suppliers as well as investment in new machinery and technology. Confagricoltura called on the new MEPs to take these risks into account in the negotiations on the CAP after 2020 and to prevent both the mandatory capping of direct payments and the limited deduction of staff costs.
More information is available here.

The German Social Democratic Party (SPD) called for reinforcement of membership contributions from Germany to the EU budget. According to the SPD, strengthening the membership contribution could help to ensure a sufficient budget for the Common Agricultural Policy. An adequate budget should also be provided for the cohesion policy, but funding from these sources should be better targeted after 2021 to support the development of rural areas without excessive administrative burdens.

Directive (EU) 2019/633 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17/04/2019 on unfair commercial practices between businesses in the agricultural and food chain was published on 25/04/2019 in the Official Journal of the EU. The Directive will enter into force on 30/04/2019. It will protect all suppliers with a total turnover of less than EUR 350 million, providing a list of 10 fully prohibited unfair commercial practices.
Directive is available here.

European Parliament elections will be held from 23-26/05/2019, yet many media have been speculating on issues that could be crucial for the new European Parliament, in particular the EP Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, over the next five years. One of the main topics will be the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy - the new members of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development (COMAGRI) will have to decide whether to accept the already approved COMAGRI position of April 2019, or to reject it and make a new one. Even if the report is accepted and forwarded to the EP plenary vote in autumn 2019, representatives of European NGOs expect to submit hundreds of amendments to the COMAGRI opinion from April. If COMAGRI decides to rework the position, negotiating the reform by 2021 would be unlikely. A similar situation applies to the new Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (COMENVI), which will decide on fate of its position to the new CAP of February 2019. Another agricultural topic will probably be strengthening the environmental and climate policy ambitions of the agricultural policy (moving away from focusing on the economic aspect), inter alia through the so-called new green CAP architecture.

The new Parliament will also address the issue of food origin labelling, in particular the country of origin labelling of the main ingredients. The new COMENVI Committee should be in charge of the labelling rules as for the country of origin. Labelling of the country of origin should cover, for example, milk, dairy products and meat. In the coming weeks, it is also expected to be published the European Commission's report on colour coding by means of the so-called Nutri-Score, introduced by France as a voluntary scheme, but it is also supported by Belgium and Portugal. According to some media, the new European Commission could submit draft legislation for this type of labelling, aiming to inform consumers about food nutrition. The draft legislation would then be discussed by the new European Parliament.

Another topic should be a new generation of genetically modified organisms and a discussion about the rules for new breeding techniques. It has already been discussed whether the same strict EU rules should apply to new breeding techniques as to genetically modified organisms. Similarly, the European Commission proposing legislation and a subsequent debate in the European Parliament are expected.

Last but not least, the issue of pesticides is expected to be discussed. The European Commission should publish a report by the end of June 2019 providing recommendations for the revision of EU legislation on plants protection products and pesticide residues in food. Even though the rules for enhancing transparency have already been adopted in recent weeks as part of the debate on General Food Law, the Commission is supposed to present even stricter rules after the European Parliament elections.