This recommendation was made earlier this week by senior officials from the 27 EU countries in the Special Committee on Agriculture (SCA). This group has prepared the debates of the Agriculture Council, taking place next week in Brussels. The European Commission also participates in all SCA meetings. The SCA is considered one of the most influential advisory bodies for European agricultural policy.
Little substantive information is yet known in Brussels about the 'strategic dialogue' promised by Von der Leyen. Last year, she called for overcoming polarization on controversial issues such as pesticide use in agriculture. According to her, it is possible to reconcile healthy farming and a livable natural environment.
Her ambition is to bring all players in the food chain to the dialogue table — not only producers and processors but also other stakeholders, including civil society. For this reason, she has now presented a note with three targeted questions to the agriculture ministers and agricultural organizations. The ministers will meet on January 23 in Brussels; the agricultural organizations two days later.
The European agricultural umbrella group Copa-Cogeca says they will hold Von der Leyen to her word and feel better equipped for negotiations with the European Commission thanks to recent farmers’ protests. However, whether the ministers or the European Commission will allow the agricultural umbrellas to narrow the discussion exclusively to 'farmers’ interests,' or whether 'future challenges' (Ukraine?) will be addressed, remains to be seen.
The agenda for the meeting of the 27 agriculture and nature ministers has featured since last week Von der Leyen’s apparently simple request with three questions: what are the conditions to enable farmers to continue supplying food and raw materials and generate a decent income sustainably? Which topics would you like to bring up — to depolarize the debate about agricultural issues? What results do you expect from this strategic dialogue? These are the questions she asks the Agriculture Ministers.
That request is apparently the start of the dialogue. No fewer than four EU commissioners are taking part in the Agriculture Council meeting: Janusz Wojciechowski (Agriculture), Stella Kyriakides (Health and Food Safety), Virginijus Sinkevičius (Environment), and Maroš Šefčovič (Green Deal). “We want to start discussions to rebuild consensus on the CAP and European agriculture,” Vice-President Šefčovič said recently. Since late last year, he has taken over the Green Deal tasks from Frans Timmermans.
What Dutch Minister Adema will say is not yet clear. In a letter to Parliament, he makes a few non-committal remarks that 'the cabinet welcomes the initiative... dialogue is necessary... it can strengthen connections... and that a joint European vision must be developed.'
With the chosen approach ('first asking what the ministers expect'), it remains entirely unclear when conclusions or decisions can be expected. Considering the European parliamentary elections (June this year), the composition of a new European Commission (autumn this year), and the formulation of new European agricultural policy (early next year), little concrete can be expected for the time being.
This procedure of asking questions to the ministers ('gathering input') is quite common in the EU decision-making process: it prevents (official) notes and policy proposals from going in a very different direction than what ministers and politicians apparently envisage. Von der Leyen emphasized earlier that dialogue is necessary to depolarize the food debate. Her three questions to the ministers and the agricultural community are evidently the moment to start 'that European consensus-building process.'