Asiago, Black Forest Ham, Brie, Camembert, Chorizo, Emmental, Fontina, Gorgonzola, Gouda, Grana, Feta, Kiełbasa, Mortadella, Munster, Pecorino, Parmesan: these are just a few of the European cheeses and meat products that are Geographical Indications (GIs) — or names intrinsically linked to GI systems — protected at EU level and included in the recently signed EU-Mercosur Agreement.

“Yet today”, warns Luigi Scordamaglia, President of Eat Europe, “even this claimed protection appears increasingly fragile following a recent bilateral trade agreement between the United States and Argentina.”

Eat Europe and Farm Europe underline how under the deal signed between Washington and Buenos Aires, the United States has secured the protection of these same names in Argentina as “generic” terms. In practice, this prevents Argentina from restricting U.S. market access based on the use of these denominations, effectively opening the door to products that imitate Europe’s most renowned specialties.

“This development raises a fundamental question: what real value does GI protection under the EU-Mercosur Agreement hold if parallel bilateral deals can neutralize its enforcement?” commented Yves Madre, President of Farm Europe.

GIs are not mere commercial labels. They are legal instruments that safeguard quality standards, territorial identity, biodiversity, and social cohesion. They protect agricultural models rooted in environmental stewardship, respect for labor standards, and centuries-old know-how. When these names are treated as generic, entire production systems are weakened. Value is shifted away from rural territories and authentic producers toward industrial replication and globalized commodity markets.

The Argentine opening to U.S. “European-sounding” products significantly amplifies the structural risks already embedded in the Mercosur framework. The agreement lacks full reciprocity and does not provide robust, automatic safeguard mechanisms. It risks allowing duty-free imports of products that may not meet the same environmental, phytosanitary, and labor standards imposed on European farmers — creating an uneven playing field and undermining the credibility of EU quality policy itself.

In this context, the political responsibility becomes unavoidable. “The European Commission, under the leadership of Ursula von der Leyen, has repeatedly presented the Mercosur deal as a strategic success capable of defending European excellence. Yet if one of the key signatories can simultaneously dismantle the practical enforceability of GI protection through separate trade concessions, the agreement risks becoming not a shield, but a vulnerability”, said Luigi Scordamaglia.

Promoting and valorising authentic agricultural products must remain at the core of EU trade policy. Strong, multi-layered and enforceable protection of GIs is not a symbolic demand — it is essential to defend quality, sustainability, rural economies, and Europe’s cultural heritage.

If trade policy fails to defend its own standards, it does not merely compromise market access; it erodes the foundations of the European agricultural model itself.

Yesterday, the European Parliament approved the provisional agreement resulting from interinstitutional negotiations on cross-borders unfair trading practices in business-to-business relationships in the agricultural and food supply chain. 

With 555 votes in favour, none against and 26 abstentions, Members of the European Parliament gave their final approval to new rules requiring national authorities to work together to tackle unfair trading practices. The objective is to ensure that farmers are fairly paid for their work. As a result, cross-border unfair trading practices that harm farmers and small agricultural producers will be prevented, investigated and sanctioned.

Farm Europe welcomes the work of Commissioner Hansen alongside rapporteur Stefano Bonaccini as well as the Danish Presidency on this long awaited improvement of the internal market. This text will help improve farmers’ position in the agrifood supply chain and enhance transnational cooperation in case suppliers and buyers are in different Member States. It will be an important milestone, to be completed through the upcoming broader revision of the Directive on UTPs – at least extending the list of UTPs (black list) and simplifying the rules governing complaints and sanctions –  and in parallel through an effective conclusion of the trilogue negotiations on the proposals to rebalance the functioning of the food supply chain and better protect EU farmers, in the context of the reform of the Common Market Organisation (CMO), to clarify contractual relations. 

Concretely, the new rules approved by MEPs today support the following objectives: 

• Stopping cross-border unfair trading practices on member states’ initiative
• Tackling unfair trading practices by buyers located outside the EU
• Exchanging cross border information 

The provisional agreement now needs to be approved by Council. It will apply 18 months after being published in the EU Official Journal.

When the European Commission presented its proposals to apply the Green Deal to agriculture, Farm Europe took the lead to point out what they implied for the EU: lower production, higher food costs, less food security, lower exports, lower revenues.

That analysis was widely shared. It was followed by a strong reaction from farmers’ organisations and political representatives, in particular in the European Parliament.

The Commission heard the criticisms and has either withdrawn or shelved the initial proposals. Farmers were therefore shielded from the economic damage that would result from applying contractionary policies to address environmental and climate challenges without properly taking into account the need to combine economic and environmental performance.

Farm Europe stressed that the way to address those challenges was through more investment and innovation on technologies and practices that reduce the environmental footprint without sacrificing growth and revenues.

Unfortunately, the sector is at the brink of being hit by the application of the Green Deal to the rest of the economy.

A structural loss of competitiveness 

Farmers have been warned that the price of fertilisers for 2026 would go up sharply due to the application of the CBAM – the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. The CBAM is to be imposed as of 2026, and it will initially apply to imports of cement, iron and steel, aluminum, fertilisers, electricity, and hydrogen.  

The CBAM is an import tax to ensure that the carbon price of imports is equivalent to the carbon price of domestic production. The CBAM is thus linked to the EU Emission Trading System (ETS) and it is specifically designed to protect the domestic market from imports from countries where there is no carbon emissions price.

It reflects the philosophy of the Green Deal which is to increase production costs of high carbon intensive products, undermining their competitiveness, rather than incentivizing low carbon solutions. The focus is to “green” the offer rather than the demand. In most of the sectors, this strategy is leading to a dead-end, as companies take the risk to invest in green products, without guarantees on a corresponding market. They face a major financial risks as the current situation of the automotive sector is showing.

According to the French institute Arvalis for the French wheat producers (AGPB), the production cost of soft wheat was 240 €/t on average between 2019 and 2024, with a range from 180 to 320. The fertilisers cost varied from 25 to 60 €/t (i.e. 13 to 23 % of the total cost). The CBAM cost would represent 5 to 10 % of the production cost and between 35 and 200% of the net revenue of the average typical French farm over the recent years. It could result in an increase between €13 and €24 per ton of cereal produced in the EU, and €16 to €31 per ton of oilseeds, which is simply unbearable.

In Italy, according to Coldiretti and Filiera Italia, over the past six months, the price of fertilisers has increased by 17%, and it is expected to rise by a further 2–3% in the coming months, on the top of previous increases since the war in Ukraine started. A further rise resulting from the application of the CBAM is expected, estimated at up to 15%. 

Not only a short term challenge

Recently the Commission made some reassuring declarations to the effect that she would stabilise the price of fertilisers. The Commission envisions as a first step to eliminate import tariffs, thus reducing the price of imports that account for close to half of the EU needs. If this first step were to come short of stabilising prices, the Commission floated the possibility of suspending the application of the CBAM for fertilisers.

The problem with this approach is that whilst aiming to soften only partially farm input costs, it sacrifices the EU fertiliser industry, and does not address the real issue at stake : a true competitive business model for financing the climate transition of EU agriculture. The issue is not only a short term price issue, but a medium to long term strategy to lay down the foundation of a value chain from fertilisers to cereals, located in the European Union, competitive on global market. The EU cannot afford to lose export markets, which are even more strategic as Russia uses wheat exports as a geopolitical asset.

EU domestic fertilizers industry has lost a significant share of its production capacity due to the gas price increases that followed the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and the sanctions that were applied against the aggressor; and the gradual application of the ETS that increased the price of CO2 emissions. According to the sector, it lost 7 million tonnes of Nitrogen production capacity, and an additional 2.7 million tonnes are stopped — which means that they could eventually be available to operate again.

If the measures envisioned by the Commission are applied, the industry would suffer the full blast of tariff free imports from producers who do not pay for their CO2 emissions. It would expose domestic producers to “reverse carbon leakage” as imports of high-carbon fertilisers would increase.

It is not in the interest of the EU to be even more dependent upon imports for their key inputs, and certainly it is not in the interest of the EU to be even more dependent upon third countries to ensure its strategic autonomy and food security.

Fixing the fertilization problem at its root

Therefore, Farm Europe urges the Commission to take a immediate and holistic approach that leaves no strategic sector exposed and shape a new business model for a credible and sustainable decarbonation strategy for agriculture and the fertilizer sector together. This challenge is directly connected to EU strategic autonomy and to its geopolitical influence in the world. How to reduce emissions in the fertiliser sector should be fundamentally revised. Measures should be taken without delay in order to avoid detrimental impact on EU farmers in 2026. 

The immediate remedy is to exclude fertilisers from the application of the ETS, which would automatically exclude the sector from the application of the CBAM. An ad hoc decarbona-tion strategy for the farmers and the fertilisers industry altogether should be defined, fo-cusing on the demand, via true incentives rather than trying to create an artificial offer with-out market. 

The path to reducing emissions in the production of fertilisers could be pursued through a balanced mix of incentives to encourage lower emissions and increase the production of green fertilisers. 

A key component should be to allow farmers to sell carbon farming credits (emission reduction) to ETS companies who need allowances. As a crucial element of agriculture emissions comes from the use of fertilisers, farmers could buy certified low-carbon fertilisers, generate emission reduction carbon credits on a voluntary basis. The additional price of green fertilisers would be covered via the ETS market without agriculture being include in this market as a sector, neither fertilisers as the decarbonation strategy. This approach would be exclusively focusing on incentives for farmers, whilst generating a true demand for the EU fertilizers companies. In addition, a target of a 5% incorporation mandate for green fertilisers could be considered, offering the possibility to use biomethane.

Those incentives should be limited to EU-produced fertilisers, as it is essential to guarantee the veracity of certification. Unfortunately, the experience with certification of imports has shown that it is prone to fraud, and so far, the Commission has been unable to stop massive fraud occurring in imports of biofuels.

In the meantime, the use of organic fertilisers should also be incentives via a targeted revision of the Nitrate directive allowing to go beyond the limits of nitrogen application from manure to 170 kg N/ha/year depending on local conditions. 

Those initial proposals could be the backbone of an ambitious strategy to be set on the occasion of the fertilisers action plan which is due to be presented later this year. 

This morning the European Parliament adopted the trilogue agreement reached with its co-legislator last December, concerning the European climate law (ECL) amendment introducing a binding intermediate climate target for 2040 of a 90% reduction in net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions compared to 1990 levels. 413 MEPs voted in favour of the text, 226 against, and 12 abstained. A majority of members rejected an amendment tabled by the Patriots for Europe proposing the rejection of the proposal as a whole. This vote concludes the Parliament’s first reading.

This agreement maintains the -90% GHG emissions target by 2040, as proposed by the European Commission. This new target implies an extremely ambitious decarbonisation trajectory for the European economy, when the current EU approach to the green transition is already challenged by global competitors like China and the United States. In this context, Farm Europe considers that beyond the target, a new pathway should be defined at the European Union level in order to progress on the climate ambitions while creating a true opportunity for the economy, including for farmers. Therefore, we welcome the new wording inserted in the provisional deal inciting the European Commission to “ensure and support a fair and just, pragmatic, cost-effective and socially balanced transition for all [..] paying particular attention to impacts on […] farmers”. 

In order to put this statement into motion, the European Commission should unlock the potential contribution of the agricultural sector’s own decarbonisation and that of other industries, such as energy, chemicals, plastics and biomaterials. To achieve this, the European agricultural sector’s capacity to capture carbon and supply circular biogenic carbon to other sectors must be scaled up and this carbon value chain fully acknowledged. To this end, the EU must ensure the creation of a stable and solid market for agricultural carbon removals and emission reductions, so as to provide real incentives to farmers. An effective solution in this sense would be to allow economic actors covered by the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) to meet part of their obligations through EU carbon farming credits. The fact that the agreement includes a possibility for domestic permanent carbon removals to be used to compensate for hard-to-abate emissions in the ETS seems to be a step in the right direction, but further measures need to be taken to cover emission reductions in the farming sector as well.

Furthermore, Farm Europe expresses deep concern regarding the agreement’s provision establishing that, starting from 2036, up to 5% (two additional percentage points compared to the original proposal) of the emissions reductions counting towards the -90% target for 2040 can come from international carbon credits (Member States will also be allowed to apply to outsource a further five percentage points). Although the European Parliament obtained the inclusion of conditions to ensure that these credits will be linked to emission reductions in third countries that are permanent, would not have happened otherwise, and do not result in double counting (by both the EU and the third country), this principle paves the way for unreliable certificates and risks of large-scale fraud. This is particularly worrisome at a time when the Commission is already struggling to control fraud within global green value chains like imported Annex IX biofuels. Such certificates would be impossible to adequately verify, thus undermining their credibility. Moreover, since their value would not reflect the true costs of decarbonisation efforts put in place within the European Union, this risks discouraging investments for domestic actions.

On Tuesday, the European Parliament approved the provisional agreement resulting from interinstitutional negotiations on the wine package.

MEPs approved the provisional agreement reached with EU Member States on 4 December 2025 by a vote of 625 to 15, with 11 abstentions. The new  rules aim to tackle the challenges faced by wine producers while opening up new market opportunities.

Farm Europe welcomes the work of Commissioner Hansen alongside rapporteur Esther Herranz García, as well as the Danish Presidency on this crucial improvement for the EU wine sector, following the first and last trilogue.

​​This positive vote of the European Parliament represents a necessary and long-awaited response to the most pressing challenges faced by the European wine sector. It also addresses the related requests expressed by the High-Level Group on Wine.

The deal introduces clearer rules for de-alcoholised wines, in particular for the use of the terms “alcohol-free” and “alcohol reduced”. Wine producers will also benefit from greater flexibility in the face of natural disasters, plant disease, or pest pressures, with an additional year to plant or replant affected vines. EU funds may now be used for grubbing-up, and national payment ceilings for wine distillation and green harvesting are set at 25% of globally available funds per Member State.

The agreement also strengthens support for wine tourism and promotional initiatives. Producer organisations managing protected designations of origin (PDOs) and protected geographical indications (PGIs) will have additional support to promote wine tourism. Promotional campaigns targeting third countries will benefit from enhanced co-financing: up to 60% from the EU, with Member States able to provide additional support, and funding may extend up to nine years.

The provisional agreement needs to be approved by the Council before the new rules can enter into force.

Farm Europe warmly welcomes the approval by the ENVI Committee, today, of the provisional agreement resulting from interinstitutional negotiations on New Genomic Techniques (NGTs). 

The favourable vote in the ENVI Committee sends an important signal of the European Parliament’s commitment to promoting responsible, science-based innovation, in support of the sustainability and competitiveness of EU agricultural enterprises. European farmers and consumers alike need this text to be adopted as swiftly as possible, in order to be equipped with the necessary tools for a more resilient, competitive and sustainable agricultural sector.

Farm Europe believes that the compromise reached during trilogue negotiations represents a crucial step towards providing European agriculture with a clear, balanced and competitive regulatory framework, finally enabling the concrete application of innovations that have become indispensable to address the challenges posed by climate change, increasing pressure from pests and diseases, water resilience, and the progressive reduction in available crop protection products.

The agreement offers a much-needed opportunity for both farmers and consumers. This will support the path towards sustainable intensification, enabling European agriculture to produce more and better, while laying the foundations for a resilient and increasingly carbon-neutral economy in which agriculture is part of the solution.

While the deal is necessarily a compromise, it nevertheless represents a light at the end of the tunnel after years in which European farmers have been constrained by political choices that placed ideology ahead of science, and consumers have been left uncertain about the real nature of their food options. 

Regarding the next steps, the Council is expected to adopt its formal first reading position in the AGRIFISH Council of 30th March allowing a formal adoption by  the EP plenary scheduled for 27th April. 

Eat Europe and Farm Europe warmly welcome the initiative taken during the Agrifish EU Council by several EU Members States, calling on the European Commission to revise Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 on food information to consumers (FIC Regulation) and to extend mandatory origin labelling to a broader range of agricultural and food products.

At a time when food sovereignty has become a strategic priority for the European Union, ensuring long-term access for all citizens to safe, healthy, sustainable and high-quality food requires strong support for European agriculture and the agri-food sector. Transparent and reliable origin labelling is a key tool to achieve this objective.

While EU legislation already provides for mandatory origin labelling for certain products—such as fresh meats, eggs, fruits and vegetables, honey, olive oil, fishery products, wine and organic products—these rules remain fragmented and incomplete. They do not cover all raw products, in particular products of animal origin, and the indication of the origin of primary ingredients in processed foods is still not systematic.

“We strongly believe that clearer and more comprehensive origin labelling would significantly strengthen consumer trust, enhance transparency and better valorise products produced in line with high European standards”, commented Yves Madre, President of Farm Europe. It would also empower consumers to make more informed and sustainable purchasing choices, favouring local supply chains and short distribution circuits, while reinforcing the position of European farmers within the food supply chain.

“In a context marked by the multiplication of trade agreements, European consumers are increasingly attentive to the origin of the food they purchase and are demanding higher levels of transparency. Clear Country of origin labelling – instead of a generic and sometimes misleading indication of origin “EU-Non EU” – is also essential to ensure fair competition and to recognise the economic, social and environmental value of EU production standards”, said the President of Eat Europe Luigi Scordamaglia.

Eat Europe and Farm Europe therefore fully support the call by the signatory Member States for a swift revision of the FIC Regulation. This revision should build on the experience gained from the implementation of the rules on the indication of the origin of primary ingredients, which have represented an important step forward but remain imperfect and unevenly applied across the Union. In particular, Eat Europe encourages the Commission to prioritise the indication of the Country of origin, rather than broad references such as “EU” or “non-EU”, which do not fully meet consumers’ expectations for transparency.

Eat Europe and Farm Europe call on the European Commission to seize this momentum and act without delay. Expanding mandatory Country of origin labelling to the widest possible range of food products is essential to meet consumer expectations, support European farmers, promote sustainable food systems and strengthen the EU’s food sovereignty.

Today, the European Parliament has adopted its resolution seeking an opinion from the Court of Justice on the compatibility with the Treaties of the proposed EU-Mercosur Partnership Agreement (EMPA) and Interim Trade Agreement (ITA).

MEPs had to face today one of the most important choices of the current term: whether or not to support the Mercosur agreement, under intense pressure from the European Commission and some Member States. Farm Europe and Eat Europe welcome the determination and dedication to democracy of the 334 MEPs who voted in favour of the resolution that should de facto suspend the ratification process of the Mercosur trade agreement. 

The challenges faced today by the EU economy do not rely on a single trade agreement, but on the contrary by the capacity of the European Union and the European Commission in particular to lay down the conditions for a flourishing EU economy including when it comes to agriculture, which is not the case today, without undermining democratic processes that are the strength of the EU, internally and globally. Our values must be respected and valorised instead of considered as an obstacle. 

Concerning agriculture, the agenda today on the table is going the opposite direction of the Draghi’s report. Therefore, we urge the European Commission to fully respect democracy and focus the work in the coming months on stepping up internal policies to revive EU competitiveness and resilience, pushing forward modern and forward looking trade agenda rather than out dated ones that makes agriculture the banker of all trade negotiations at a time where agriculture sovereignty is more important than ever.

It is now up to the European Parliament to decide on the future of the trade agreement between the European Union and the Mercosur countries, following its adoption by a qualified majority of the permanent representatives of the EU Member States. When making their individual choices, MEPs will have to take into account not only the geopolitical and economic issues highlighted by the European Commission to speed up ratification, but also the serious consequences of this agreement for European agriculture. The latter currently lacks the tools to stand up to competition from Latin American countries. 

The measures taken by the European Commission in recent days do not restore the balance and could not justify any change in position on the agricultural aspects of this agreement, which is detrimental to European farmers:

• Lowering the monitoring threshold for activating the safeguard clause for agricultural products to 5% does not change the situation. This safeguard clause is purely cosmetic. It provides no additional guarantees to those negotiated in the agreement itself. Furthermore, the real, automatic and robust reciprocity clauses initially proposed by the European Parliament have been discarded. Under these conditions, European farmers would indeed face unfair competition, caught between European rules, with a strong impact on their competitiveness, aimed at protecting the environment and EU consumers on the one hand, and imported products that flout these same standards on the other. The finalisation of this agreement would deal a fatal blow to the credibility of the rules put in place within the EU over the last 20 years to regulate agricultural activity. 
• As regards the recent budgetary statement on the CAP of President Ursula von der Leyen, it does not in any way constitute a guarantee for European farmers. Although the European Commission has recognised that at least €400 billion would be needed to preserve the CAP budget, rather than the €300 billion in the protected envelope, the recent letter from Ursula von der Leyen does not provide any guarantees at this stage nor the necessary visibility for European farmers. On the contrary, the President of the European Commission is leaving harmful doubts hanging over possible distortions of competition, not only from third countries, but also within the internal market itself, depending on the choices that Member States may make after 2027 in implementing their national programmes. Moreover, the Commission is confronting national leaders with an unsolvable financial equation, having slashed the CAP by 20%, cohesion by 40% and the European Social Fund by 100% within the proposed single fund. Under these conditions, how can the EU ensure calm arbitration and offer farmers clear prospects after 2027 within a common framework? 

In the coming days, MEPs will therefore face one of the most important choices of the current term: whether or not to support the Mercosur agreement. At this stage, such support would be misunderstood by almost all farmers in the European Union. It would sow the seeds of a major rift between Europe and its agricultural community, one of the most committed to this project, which has, until now, enabled the EU to become an agricultural powerhouse. The EU finds itself at a crossroads, in an extremely fragile position, at a time when world powers are turning agriculture into a major geopolitical weapon of the 21st century. 

The agreement negotiated by the European Commission with Mercosur is outdated in this respect. It follows in the footsteps of all those negotiations in which European agriculture has been the banker, the losing sector, whenever a potential overall benefit for the Union was expected. 

At a time when European sovereignty is a leitmotif repeated ad nauseam by European and national political circles, this sovereignty depends first and foremost on our ability to increase our agricultural production in order to meet our food security needs, our ability to supply our importing partners, and our assurance that we can build an autonomous foundation for our emerging bioeconomy. the sincerity of its use by some remains to be seen, unless it is a symptom of a Europe without an economic compass, negotiating agreements, measures and countermeasures according to particular interests, without a strategy to place Europe and Europeans at the forefront of Community action.