News

Irish MEP from the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left party (GUE/NGL) Luke Ming Flanagan rejected the CAP budget cut last week, supporting strengthening the defence budget. According to Flanagan, the budget for the CAP should not be cut, but the provision of CAP subsidies must be adapted in order to be able to justify the CAP budget. As a part of the future CAP, it is therefore necessary to set up a fair system of aid payments, responding to the increase of environmental and climate protection requirements. Luke Ming Flanagan is one of the main supporters of compulsory capping at the level of EUR 60,000 in the European Parliament; compulsory capping of direct payments is likely to be one of his main priorities in the upcoming campaign before the European Parliament elections in May 2019.

On 11/02/2019, the European Parliament and the Council reached agreement within the 3rd trialogue of the EP, the EC and the Council on the final text of the proposal for a regulation on the transparency and sustainability of the EU risk assessment system. The reform of the so-called General Food Law of the EU will affect all sectors of the agro-food industry. Producers of pesticides, genetically modified food, additives or food flavourings will have to publish the scientific studies that they submit to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) during the approval process in order to raise awareness among EU citizens and their confidence in the risk assessment system. Taking into consideration the increase in workload associated with the adoption of the General Food Law, EFSA asks for an increase in its annual budget, which could be increased by another € 62 million. The Permanent Representatives Committee of the Member States (Coreper I) unanimously approved the agreed final text of the proposal on 15/02/2019. The regulation must now be formally approved at the plenary session of the EP. More information is available here.

Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Vytenis Andriukaitis called on all Member States to make greater efforts to comply with food safety laws. He said that the current situation with unsafe Polish beef would have been avoided if the Member States didn’t fail to implement the measures introduced after the 2017 Fipronil in eggs Scandal (Andriukaitis's statement is available here). The European Commission is urging Poland to quickly tackle and resolve the situation together with tightening food quality controls. In Poland, Elkopol Sp. company has been closed down for exporting unsafe beef outside Poland to CZ, EE, FI, FR, GR, HU, LT, LV, PT, RO, ES, SE, DE & SK.

The European Commission has launched an online consultation to review legislation on food contact materials. The consultation is for the public, all businesses involved in the supply chain, non-governmental associations and public authorities. The objective of this evaluation is to assess to what extent the current EU legal framework for food contact materials serves its purpose and brings the expected results and to identify any unexpected impacts or issues resulting from existing legislation. The materials provided by the Commission can be found here, consultations available here.

Environmental organization Greenpeace published a report on the state of animal production in the European Union on 12/02/2019, in which it rejects further intensification of animal production supported from EU public sources. According to Greenpeace, animal production in the EU accounts for around 71% of farmland, and considering area payments, animal production is supported by almost one fifth of the Union's annual budget. According to Greenpeace, such high support for the sector, which is considered by environmental NGOs to be a contributor to habitat destruction and climate change, is unacceptable. In addition, large animal businesses are, according to Greenpeace, driven and motivated by public funding to grow while small producers are ceasing to exist. Greenpeace has supported a reduction in the volume of meat and animal products consumed, which should be supported by a reduction in the volume of subsidies to support this sector. The European Commission and the largest European agricultural organization Copa and Cogeca have denied Greenpeace's report, the overall support from CAP funds, according to them, is far from reaching the figures that Greenpeace has announced.
Greenpeace report is available here, more information is available here.