MEPs Now Focus on Food, Animals, and Agriculture

Important votes are scheduled this Thursday and Friday in the committees of the European Parliament. The Agriculture Committee will, among other things, vote on the negotiators' agreement for a new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which their trialogue negotiators concluded in June.

Technically, the AGRI committee will vote on the three regulations for the CAP reform: the strategic plans, financial management and control, and the common market organization. The entire European Parliament will vote on these texts in October or November. The new CAP is expected to come into effect in 2023.

A group of nearly 30 stakeholders in agriculture, including the EU farmers’ association COPA-COGECA and CEJA, the European Council of Young Farmers, warn against various elements they say pose an “unsustainable” risk to the agri-food sector.

Additionally, the Agriculture Committee will hold a joint meeting with the ENVI committee (environment, public health, and food safety) to vote on their common response to the “Farm to Fork” strategy.

This food strategy, proposed by the European Commission, aims to ensure that food systems are fair, healthy, and environmentally friendly, but it could have a major impact on agricultural production methods.

The EU’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) recently conducted research on the effects of the food strategy on biodiversity. Potential benefits include reductions in greenhouse gas and ammonia emissions, but also a possible decline in EU production and price changes.

EU scientists emphasize that their study is not a full impact assessment because it did not consider other measures that could also support the transition. On the other hand, agricultural organizations continue to assert that even EU accountants say the Farm to Fork criteria could negatively affect agriculture.

MEPs from the ANIT committee for Animal Welfare will discuss and vote on the investigation into animal protection during livestock transport. This could lead to a ban on live animal transports to countries outside the EU. A total of 1,233 amendments have been submitted on the legislative proposal.

Commissioner Stella Kyriakides has been invited by the committees for an exchange of views on the coherence between different issues within the portfolios of the Commissioners for Agriculture, Health, Environment, Animal Welfare, and Climate.

In the past, EU administrative services, EC commissioners, and EP committees often worked alongside one another without coordination, each primarily defining their own area of work. In the current Von der Leyen Commission, several vice-presidents have been appointed as coordinators ‘above’ other commissioners in an effort to establish ‘policy unity.’