The EU Agriculture Ministers are tapping the brakes on the Farm-to-Fork food strategy (F2F) of European Commissioners Frans Timmermans (Environment + Climate + Biodiversity) and Stella Kyriakides (Health + Food Safety).
During the first meeting of the 27 EU Agriculture Ministers under the chairmanship of their German counterpart Julia Klöckner, the two strategy documents were received with extreme criticism on Monday. Many officials fear that parts of the agricultural sector will relocate to non-EU countries if the Green Deal plans proceed.
Most EU countries do support the objective of more sustainable food production, but in many agricultural nations the European Commission has reached the “pain threshold” with its Green Deal, it was said.
Many ministers fear that farms will be burdened with new requirements in environmental and climate policy. As is known, the Commission proposes reducing the use of plant protection products in the EU by 50 percent and fertilizers by 20 percent by 2030. In particular, many agriculture ministers want an 'impact assessment' of the new measures from the Commission first.
Fourteen of the 27 EU ministers said they oppose having amounts already included in budgets for conversion or modernizations in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). They want more assurances and guarantees first and are prepared to take two years for that.
EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides emphasized that the reduction targets for plant protection and fertilization precisely match the sustainability level the Commission strives for. But the European Commission, the European Parliament, and a number of EU countries have already indicated that they do not want to postpone the new European Environment and Climate policy but want to fully incorporate it into the new CAP policy.
After the meeting, EU Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski admitted that the opinions of the EU ministers on the Farm-to-Fork and biodiversity strategies were still very diverse. This also applies to the new instrument Brussels wants to introduce, the so-called national strategic plans. In these, the EU countries must indicate how they will implement the Green Deal components in practice.
Wojciechowski once again emphasized the importance of a higher agriculture budget to financially support farmers in implementing the Green Deal. Despite the differences of opinion among the EU agriculture ministers, German chairwoman Julia Klöckner reiterated that the intention is for the ministers to finalize the CAP reform and the F2F strategy in October.
Behind the scenes in Brussels, there is still disagreement about who will be responsible for what in the future. The 'agriculture' EU services believe they govern the CAP budget, but the ENVI environmental services argue that the Green Deal components take precedence and that AGRI/agriculture will have to incorporate the consequences of that new GD policy into the CAP budgets.