Month: February 2025

No clean industrial deal without a stronger EU agriculture

Posted on - Posted by Farm Europe

Today, the European Commission adopted its Clean Industrial Deal.

Presenting the roadmap and main policy initiatives to follow, the Executive Vice President, Stéphane Séjourné, summarized the ambition as a need to do more and better and create a real business plan, while underlining the will to focus on “Made in Europe.” This new political impetus is a welcome and clear step in the right direction for the European Commission. It will need to be the first milestone before further bold initiatives to truly reconcile competitiveness and the green transition.

The role of agriculture must be stressed in this context : there will be no Made-in-Europe Clean Industrial Deal without more and better agricultural products. Whether it concerns renewable energy, chemicals (including bioplastics), textiles, or biomaterials for buildings, a large share of input will have to come from agriculture.

The role of agricultural biomass must be further underlined and fully reflected into the future bioeconomy strategy. Also in this sector, Europe should seek for sustainable intensification, in other words, to produce more and better. The bioeconomy agricultural values chains are strategic if Europe is willing to build a sovereign, efficient and affordable carbon neutral economy.

Therefore, Farm Europe calls upon the European Commission :

•⁠ ⁠To further integrate its agricultural and industrial strategies to unlock the potential contribution of farmers to the bioeconomy without unnecessary obstacles. For example, the crop cap on biofuels should be increased, the limitations in the taxonomy lifted and additional incentives created for other bioeconomy sectors going beyond traditional targets to create markets ;

•⁠ ⁠To strengthen its controls and certification mechanisms to stop unfair competition from imported products and establish robust sustainable value chains. Currently, fraudulent labelling, certification practices and lack of controls undermine the development of Made in Europe bioproducts. For example the credibility Annex IX A biofuels require urgent actions from the European Commission.

SHADOWS ON THE FUTURE MFF BLUR THE VISION FOR AGRICULTURE AND FOOD

Posted on - Posted by Farm Europe

The Vision for Agriculture and Food presented today by the European Commissioner for Agriculture and Food, Christophe Hansen, aims to show that the farmers’ distress, which culminated in a significant protest a year ago, has been well understood in Brussels. However, how this renewed political message will concretely translate into action remains an open question, especially in light of the concerning ideas initially put forward by the European Commission regarding the Multi Annual Financial Framework and the CAP budget .

The Vision presents farmers as entrepreneurs and emphasises the need to prioritize incentives over constraints, and the strategic challenge for Europe to build genuine agricultural sovereignty through a renewed focus on production. This objective is directly linked to sustainability imperatives, the fight against climate change, and innovation. These are all welcome directions that have been proposed for several years by Farm Europe.

The emphasis put on the external dimension, with the European Commission’s stated intention to ensure “reciprocity” and “regulatory alignment” between imported products and those produced within the EU, also represents progress. However, vigilance will be required regarding the concrete measures to come, which must not undermine current EU production standards, given the considerable efforts already made by European farmers to comply with them.

The fact that the Commission recognises the essential role of livestock farming and announces a future strategy for this sector is a step in the right direction. Nevertheless, this work should be conducted within a high-level group to avoid top-down approaches.

Similarly, the approach to plant protection products has been renewed by applying the principle that ban on use should be considered based on whether alternatives are available. This tangible shift must go hand in hand with an acceleration in the adoption of New Genomic Techniques (NGTs) and biocontrol products.

Finally, the document highlights the food dimension, recognizing the importance of transparency for consumers through the labeling of food origin and strengthening the link between food, territory, seasonality, and local traditions. The warning regarding ultra-processed foods is welcome, as it echoes numerous scientific studies on their harmful effects on health.

Some major concerns

However, this policy document also raises significant concerns. To establish a clear direction, the EU needed to explicitly state the necessity of sustainably increasing production to address the challenges of agricultural sovereignty. This is a dual challenge: repositioning itself geopolitically in terms of internal and external food security and gaining sufficient strategic autonomy to independently develop its bioeconomy and achieve its decarbonization goals.

Moreover, in a context of strong concern among farmers, a clear signal regarding the CAP budget is missing. Strengthening the EU’s strategic agricultural autonomy requires putting an end to decades of CAP budget reductions. A commitment to compensating for the impact of inflation, which, between 2021 and 2027, has resulted in a loss of more than €85 billion, is essential.

In this regard, doubts about the intentions behind targeting “those who are most in need” are real. This phrase has frequently been used as a euphemism for prioritizing budget constraints over a concrete vision for the future of European farms.

CAP subsidies represent more than 50% of farmers’ income and, in some Member States, more than 70%. For example, a 10% degressivity threshold beyond 16 hectares would only generate €3.2 billion in redistributive payments. However, such a measure would have harmful effects on many key agricultural structures for European production, particularly in already vulnerable areas, where farms have been forced to expand or consolidate to better control costs, compensate for low yields, and cope with agricultural prices pressure.

Our Key Priorities presented to M. Olivér Várhelyi, Commissioner for Health & Animal Welfare

Posted on - Posted by Farm Europe

After their meeting with Commissioner for Agriculture and Food, Christophe Hansen, yesterday, Luc Vernet, Secretary General of Farm Europe, and Paolo Di Stefano, Executive Director of Eat Europe, met with Commissioner for Health and Animal Welfare, Olivér Várhelyi, today. 

They discussed opening a collaborative effort to build a new agenda for agriculture and food. 

“At the start of this new political mandate, we urge the EU to slow down processes that have been initiated or revived without scientific support — such as warning labels, punitive taxation on wine, or the approval of new lab-grown products. At the same time, we must accelerate the initiatives that are genuinely needed, including innovations like NGTs to enhance sustainability and productivity, as well as biocontrol measures that provide farmers — along with a more realistic approach to PPPs—with effective tools to safeguard their investments from the risks posed by pests and diseases. Additionally, we must prioritize consumer protection, including with a clear approach to meat denominations and the provision of transparent information to consumers.”

This meeting also provided the opportunity to present the Roadmap on Agriculture and Food developed by Farm Europe, which also table proposals for future nutrition and health policies. 

It also marked the beginning of a constructive dialogue on the future of animal welfare policies, which must be aligned with the competitiveness of the EU’s livestock sector, both within Europe and globally. 

In our Roadmap for agriculture and food, we emphasize the following points regarding nutrition and health policies:

  • The European Union must maintain its high standards for human health and the quality of its food supply chain, which begins with the high sanitary standards at the farm gate. These standards must also apply to imported products. Controls on imports must be strengthened and certification rules be more robust.
  • The protein plan for Europe should not be in a collision course with the livestock sector, but on the contrary build on the complementarity between arable and livestock farming. This plan should refrain from promoting plant-based alternatives narratives or synthetic food alternatives. In recent years, certain capital-intensive players, supported by pressure groups, have sought to push for the production of synthetic proteins as a supposedly unquestionable sustainability benefit to replace animal proteins (e.g., dairy proteins, meat). A comprehensive, evidence-based debate is needed, considering ethical and environmental aspects, rather than relying on simplistic statements based on inconclusive science.

Regarding Non-Communicable Diseases and the EU’s Beating Cancer Plan, the need to address the real, scientifically backed concerns was highlighted. The EU should focus on the actual issue of rising consumption of ultra-processed products — an issue notably absent from these key EU strategies — rather than undermining the wine sector with a punitive approach that ignores consumption behaviours and scientifically proven health benefits.

Farm Europe outlines its key priorities to agriculture to Commissioner Hansen

Posted on - Posted by Farm Europe

Today, Luc Vernet, Secretary General of Farm Europe together with Ettore Prandini, chair of Farm Europe’s strategic committee and President of Coldiretti, presented Farm Europe’s key priorities to Mr Christophe Hansen, European Commissioner for Agriculture and Food.

Those orientations are based on key trends that should be taken into account :

  • If we continue not integrating inflation to adjust the value of the CAP in 2034, 54% of its value will evaporate (or 250 billions EUR), in 14 years only. 
  • Over the last 20 years, farmers’ income dropped by 12% per hectare, the EU lost 37% of its farmers and farmers’ debts increased by 30%. 
  • The European Union lost 11 million hectares of agricultural land while its agricultural footprint in the world increased by 10 million hectares. 

These indicators turning red, we urgently call for a new direction for the EU policy so that the farming communities across Europe see concrete and positive developments coming from the European Union. EU policies in the next five years should focus on: 

  • the need to rebuild the economic attractiveness of agriculture, including for boosting generation renewal. 
  • the need to secure agricultural production all across Europe and not only in the most productive areas. 
  • shaping a true agriculture sovereignty in Europe to meet the food and non food demand for our Continent and beyond.

Therefore, as core principles for the future of EU agriculture policy, we call for: 

  •  a strong and dedicated EU budget for a truly common CAP. This budget should be adjusted to inflation (in constant EUR), with strong leverage effect on investments, territorial balance, risks and crisis management, and generational renewal. 
  •  a clear farmers’-centric CAP focusing on entrepreneurs and incentives to enhance a sustainable intensification of EU production rather than norms discouraging farmers. 
  • a permanent combination of economic and environmental performance, integrating the capacity of EU agriculture to decarbonize other sectors and accelerating innovation. 

Those principles should be applied to the toolbox of the CAP with a refocus of the policy on entrepreneurs, production and optimal use of natural resources and cycles. 

EU budget: agriculture needs clarity and ambition

Posted on - Posted by Farm Europe

While the European Commission adopted its first milestone ahead of the negotiation of the next EU Budget, Farm Europe underlines the need to anchor the negotiation in clear facts and figures. Therefore, Farm Europe publishes today an overview of the key drivers and figures at stake to secure a strong support to agriculture as a strategic sector for Europe.

THE THREE CHALLENGES AROUND EU BUDGET NEGOTIATIONS

Inflation, the enlargement to Ukraine, the capacity or not to rebuild a common vision and the willingness to overcome global challenges together will be some of the major drivers for the next Multiannual Financial Framework negotiations.

  • Without an indexation to inflation for the period 2028-34 – and assuming modest inflation of 2% per year – the economic value of the CAP by 2034 would be more than halved (-54%) in comparison to its 2020 value. The CAP budget should be adjusted to inflation. 
  • The Commission’s initial proposal for a single fund would transfer greater responsibility to MS, with a clear risk of renationalising most of EU policies, loosing the common approach and internal market. This approach, which undermines the common dimension and runs the risk of losing funds earmarked for the CAP, must be rejected.
  • As a member of the EU, Ukraine could claim around 20% of the CAP budget and a substantial share of the budget allocated to cohesion policy.

Those drivers call for a new impetus in the budget negotiations at EU level, with the need to channel new financial capacities at EU level. Europe should be able to overcome new challenges, while at the same time strengthening its capacity to deliver a real agricultural ambition, which requires substantial investments. The commonality of the CAP should not be undermined.

Beating Cancer Plan : a different approach on wine needed, ultra-processed products’ are missing.

Posted on - Posted by Farm Europe

Farm Europe and Eat Europe express deep concerns regarding the recent proposal outlined in the Commission Staff Working Document published on February 4th, 2025, in preparation for the revision of Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan.

In a letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, we emphasized our commitment to supporting policies that promote healthier lifestyles, balanced diets, and sustainable agricultural practices. 

We recognize the urgent need for effective action against cancer and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) across Europe. However, we firmly oppose measures that could undermine the efforts of European producers and their role in providing high-quality, sustainable food.

Our primary concern focuses on the treatment of the wine sector as equivalent to all alcoholic beverages, which fails to recognize key distinctions in terms of consumption patterns, product composition, and the scientifically supported health benefits of moderate wine consumption.

Wine is not only an agricultural product but also a symbol of European culture, tradition, and identity. The wine sector, deeply intertwined with the work of millions of farmers across the EU, faces unique challenges — especially given the ongoing trade tensions affecting the sector. 

The proposal’s potential inclusion of misleading health warnings and unjustified taxation on wine would further harm a sector already struggling with geopolitical challenges.

Furthermore, the staff document of the European Commission neglects the growing concern over the rising consumption of ultra-processed products, which is a highly pressing issue to public health.

We call on the European Commission to shift its attention to these ultra-processed foods and rethink the proposed measures on wine.

We urge the European Commission to reconsider the approach and to engage in meaningful dialogue to protect both public health and the agricultural heritage of Europe.

Farm Europe and Eat Europe remain firm on their commitment to defend the European wine sector and its vital role in Europe’s economy, culture, and agricultural identity.