The month of May 2021 was marked by repeated calls for aid measures from countries affected by the frosts in March and April. In particular Italy, France and Greece asked the European Commission for appropriate aid. Moreover, the Council of Ministers outlined a proposal (as part of the CAP reform) envisaging the authorisation of the total or partial elimination of alcohol in the context of oenological practices, sparking a discussion at EU- level.

On a national level, in Italy CMO, planting rights and non-alcoholic wines were discussed in a hearing in the Senate; exports in the UK plummet in the first months of the year, while Italy observes an increase in large-scale retail trade in the same period. 

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In May 2021, at European level, AGRI MEPs have voted for a resolution, backing the phasing out of cages in livestock farming; the EU approved insects for human consumption for the first time; and Germany calls for a mandatory labelling of egg products in the EU.

On national level, Germany decides to ban the killing of chicks, UK meat producers voice concerns over the proposed cage ban and Ireland announces a new dairy beef scheme under the CAP Strategic Plan for Ireland. 

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The second SuperTrilogue at the end of May was supposed to bring together the co-legislators on the open points of discussion in the CAP negotiations. However, positions on fundamental points (green architecture, crisis reserve, social conditionality, etc.) were too far apart. Now, the Presidency of the Council foresees a deal for the end of next month.

At the same time, several delegations within the Council called for a comprehensive impact assessment on the whole Farm to Fork strategy. And the French Ministry for agriculture announced the first decisions regarding the National Strategic Plan.

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Farm Europe did not wish to comment on the failure of the negotiations last week, and to add its own accusations to the hubbub of sterile invective on social media. These accusations do nothing to facilitate the search for a compromise. The visibly sincere and measured reaction of the Chairman of the Agriculture Committee, Norbert Lins, calling on each of the institutions to examine its responsibility for the failure, rings true.

Beyond the angry tweets, the search for an ambitious compromise that is useful for both society and farmers cannot be achieved by posturing, as some NGOs can afford to do. The CAP has a direct impact on the lives of millions of farmers, on our complex ecosystems and on our food. It deserves more than a slogan, and must be translated into concrete tools and actions. We cannot afford a hazardous compromise that looks like a continent-wide experiment, putting our food at stake.

It is therefore useful to look at the reasons for the failure and to try to find ways of enabling the emergence of a solid and useful compromise for the Union.

First of all, it is necessary to go back to the sources of the initial proposal and, before accusing anyone, think of those who are no longer around the table! The proposal under discussion has a number of strengths, but also a number of weaknesses that explain a large part of the blockages and difficulties today. Indeed, how can we forget that many of the key parameters of the green architecture were simply a blank page in the proposal? Unusually, it is up to the co-legislators themselves to define the key orientations, to rebuild the basis of the environmental baseline of the CAP through the parameterisation of the good agri-environmental practices required from farmers and to give consistency to the eco-schemes, which were initially an empty box. The Commission intended to defer these elements to its sole prerogative during the examination of national strategic plans, which it would have validated (or not) according to undefined or non-public criteria. Nonetheless such a bureaucratic approach for important elements should not be acceptable. It would mean leaving the decision to the free will of the Commission. Ministers cannot be left in a state of uncertainty about parameters that affect whole areas of their agriculture. Furthermore, can the European Parliament, as co-political leader, accept not having visibility and relying only on the intentions from theCommission’s administration? The Common Agricultural Policy calls for political decisions. Formulating such decisions during the course of negotiations, when the institutions that hold the exclusive right of initiative insufficiently prepare them, is naturally not easy.

Secondly, it should be remembered that the CAP is now under co-decision, which some of those involved in the negotiations sometimes seem to forget. This has several implications. On the one hand, dialogue cannot be based on a bilateral discussion between the Council and the Commission. The co-legislators must assume their political responsibilities, which necessarily require intense negotiations and direct engagement between the Council – the Presidency – and all the key political forces in the European Parliament, not just the Agriculture Committee. This dialogue has not taken place. The Council has not yet really engaged in direct negotiations with the Parliament. This is now urgent! On the other hand, this means that the Commission does have a role in helping to draft compromises, but this role can no longer be exclusive. We saw this clearly during the last Trilogue: the Commission simply did not want to play this role of facilitator. It engaged in the debate in a partisan and unbalanced way, breaking the trust necessary to fully fulfill this mission. On both the Parliament’s and the Council’s sides, the negotiators must therefore develop their own capacity to draft the most complex legal aspects of the compromises in order to make progress even when the Commission is reluctant or steps out of its role. This capacity is now all the more necessary, as the Commission wants to be a political entity and no longer a technical one as was the case in the past – the collateral internal effect is also that the Commission sometimes struggle to move away from its initial proposals because of internal discussions. As soon as it is political, the co-legislators must be able to free themselves from it in order to really build compromises by detaching themselves from the initial proposal on certain points. 

From now on, it is no longer a time for posturing, but for the search for balanced and strong solutions that take into account the diversity of local realities. It is a question of shaping the Green Deal into concrete actions and not into incantations, of translating objectives into concrete paths. Each Member State must be placed on a path of progress and not confronted with unrealistic objectives that lock the CAP into a dead end. For, in the end, such a scenario would vindicate those who call for a complete overhaul of the CAP, without regard to the results on the ground. The environment and economic profitability must go hand in hand even though the two can coexist perfectly well through investments and innovation that will enable the transformation of production systems. But at this stage, certain compromises seem to sacrifice economic sustainability to environmental objectives. Impoverishing the agricultural world will not help the environment, on the contrary.

The negotiations now revolve around a very limited number of points that embody how to shape the Green Deal: GAEC 8 and 9, the means allocated to eco-schemes, the capacity to invest in the economic and ecological transition of farms through budgetary earmarking of part of the Second Pillar, guarantees regarding the proper respect of social rights, the means allocated to risk and crisis management; all of this, combined with internal and external convergence of direct payments, should be feasible for the Member States, given the cumulative impact of the budget cuts and financial reallocations associated with the new CAP.

The Green Deal will have to demonstrate through the CAP that it can lay the foundations for economic, environmental and social sustainability.

The month of May 2021 followed the publication of the Commission’s study on the legislative context of New Genomic Techniques that opened to the possibility of reviewing the legal framework at the European level. The debate on the matter was fostered by many initiatives (among others, Farm Europe organized a webinar on the subject), and discussed by the European Parliament and the Council. Both institutions, on a general level, welcomed the results of the study.

From the scientific point of view, Harvard researchers published a study explaining the functioning of a new method of genome-editing called “Retrons Library Recombineering” that could overcome the downturns of the more known CRISPR technique.

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May 27^th, 2021

Press Release by Farm Europe

Farm Europe discussed, today, the regulatory implications of the last report (1) presented by the European Commission on the status of new genomic techniques (NGT), during a digital event that gathered representatives from EU institutions and scientists.

The opinion that the current regulatory framework needs to be reviewed is widely shared. NGTs are a breakthrough innovation that represents a game-changer: they have the potential to decisively impact the transition toward resilient food systems, contributing to lower their environmental footprint, improve their capacity to adapt to climate change, and protect biodiversity while at the same time achieving our food security goals.

A revision of the European Genetic Modified Organism (GMO) legislative block, following a science and data-based impact assessment, is a topical issue that the Commission should address taking into account the latest scientific developments and breeding methods. The key amendments (see the annex for details) that Farm Europe proposes aim at excluding from the scope of the GMO legislative block the outcomes of the following processes:

• A plant in which a native trait has been edited to reproduce the functionality associated with a known trait present in the genetic heritage of the species.
• A plant in which a native trait has been edited to reproduce the functionality associated with a known trait present in the genetic heritage of a plant outside the species.
• A plant with a native edited trait with novel functionality, whose sequence changes obtained by genome editing are of the same type as those that can be obtained by spontaneous or induced mutagenesis.
• A plant in which a known gene present in the genetic make-up of the species has been inserted into a selected site in its genome.

Study on the status of new genomic techniques under Union law and in light of the Court of Justice ruling in Case C-528/16” published on April 29^th, 2021.

END

Annex – Revision of the regulations on edited plants

Genetic techniques are constantly evolving. Among them, gene editing makes it possible to add, delete or replace nucleotides precisely at a specific site in the genome of a receiving organism, thereby modifying its genetic information. Plants derived from these editing techniques are currently subject to Directive 2001/18/EC, which blocks their commercial use.

When these techniques only modify, activate, or inhibit the characteristics of genes present within the genome of the receiving plants, they make changes identical to those obtained by traditional breeding methods. Such techniques, limited to this framework, accelerate the process of varietal selection and act with more precision than traditional methods.

The time saved in creating a new variety provides farmers with better adaptation and resilience to climate change. These techniques are essential to achieve the Green Deal objectives and to meet citizens’ expectations. For farmers, they represent a useful tool for achieving both economic and environmental performances.

 Thus, an adaptation of the regulatory framework seems necessary so to exclude from the scope of Directive 2001/18/EC the following categories of edited plants:

• A plant in which a native trait has been edited^[1] to reproduce the functionality associated with a known trait present in the genetic heritage of the species^[2]. This method is equivalent to crossing a wild plant with a sexually compatible cultivated variety. High oleic soybeans have been obtained in this way.

• A plant in which a native trait has been edited to reproduce the functionality associated with a known trait present in the genetic heritage of a plant outside the species. This is an extension of the previous category to genes shared by a donor and recipient plant that are sexually incompatible but have a common ancestor between two traits of the same gene. Blight resistant wheat is an example of a plant obtained by this method.

• A plant with a native edited trait with novel functionality, whose sequence changes obtained by genome editing are of the same type as those that can be obtained by spontaneous or induced mutagenesis. Using traditional breeding methods, this change would be equivalent to that achieved by selecting a plant carrying a modified trait as a result of a spontaneous or induced mutation, which plant is then crossed with a crop plant to select for the mutation of interest. Tomatoes with a high GABA content were obtained in this way.

• A plant in which a known gene present in the genetic make-up of the species has been inserted into a selected site in its genome. This is equivalent to the natural duplication of a gene, inserted in another part of the genome, away from its usual site of origin. Late blight resistant potato plants have been obtained in this way.

The above-mentioned categories are distinguished from plants produced by transgenesis because no genes from other living beings (plants of a species other than the edited plant, animals or bacteria) have been introduced into their genome by means of a bacterium.

An edited plant will be eligible for exclusion after validation by a competent authority that it belongs to one of these categories, justifying the technique used and the modifications made.

^[1] The terms “editing” or “edited” refer to the use of genomic editing technologies.

^[2] The term “genetic heritage of the species” is defined as including all the genes and their characteristics (alleles, which correspond to different versions of the same gene) from plants that can exchange genes sexually and those from distantly related species with which genes can be exchanged sexually using traditional breeding methods.

News have circulated that the UK-Australia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) is reaching the final legs of negotiation.

The UK would have offered full free access to its market, including in beef and sheep, with a phasing-out of quotas and tariffs for these two sectors in 15 years. It is also rumoured that the UK would accept to reduce the phasing-out to only 10 years.

Our British friends will excuse us, but this note will focus on the knock-on effects into the EU agriculture, and in particular the beef sector.

A 10 years phasing-out on all import restrictions will likely consist of initial quotas being gradually increased, till full liberalization. The impact will depend on the size of the quotas (and less significantly on the in-quota tariff rates); and on whether or not the out-of-quota tariffs will also be gradually reduced.

It should be noted that at a certain point in time it will become profitable for the Australians to export their beef out-of-the –quota to the UK, paying whatever will be the full tariff, as the volumes exported under the quota make the overall exports economically viable.

Thus, in a shorter period of time than the 10 years foreseen, the quantities of Australian beef sold in the UK market will be similar to those under full free trade.

What happens to our exports of beef to the UK? They will face dramatic competition from cheaper Australian cuts, and their UK market will shrink accordingly.

This is no minor effect, as the UK is the top destination for Irish beef exports, over 1 billion euros annually. Ireland will be faced with the losses in the UK market and the difficulties in finding other export markets outside the EU that could compensate for those losses.

Inevitably a good part of prior UK exports will land in continental Europe, competing with other EU producers in a stagnant market, under pressure from all sides ( F2F, methane emissions, recommended diets).

Farm Europe has warned since Brexit was voted by the UK that, even with a fully-fledged EU-UK FTA, the EU agri-food sector would lose market share in the UK as a result of the UK opening up its market to other countries. So this does not come as a surprise, but the negative impact is coming closer with a CAP reform process coming to an end without fully integrating this new major challenge for the years ahead.

As bad news rarely fly alone, the fact that the UK is willing to phase-out all import restrictions on beef to Australia will set the tone for the remaining UK FTAs under negotiation. Specifically, it will flow logically that the US will accept no less. Therefore what we are saying about the impact of Australian imports will be compounded by US exports in the future.

This note focus on the beef sector. But we also know that the UK is willing to enter the Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement (TPP). Other sectors, like dairy, poultry and sugar, would benefit from preferential access conditions to the UK market. Top world exporters are part of the TPP – New Zealand for dairy, just to give an example. And again, this would have a negative knock-on effect on our exports to the UK.

There is very little we in the EU can do about decisions that are made in the UK. The best way to absorb the shock is to become more competitive, to conquer more export markets, in other words to be very strong and resilient economically. However, what we are witnessing as proposals coming out of the European Commission has the opposite effect, piling up further restrictions and increasing producing costs. It is urgent to change course, and address environmental and other issues using science, and mobilizing technologies and resources to achieve our objectives without making us all poorer and ultimately more dependant on imports.`