Weak Committee on public health’s outcome fails to deliver needed ambition.

Following the vote in the European Parliament’s Committee on Public Health, Eat Europe and Farm Europe strongly distance themselves from the adopted report, arguing that it falls far short of the ambition and coherence needed.

We welcomed the EU Cardiovascular Health Plan presented by Commissioner Várhelyi in December 2025 and have followed the work of the Committee in the expectation that it would strengthen the approach put forward by the European Commission. However, the final text fails to meet this objective and represents a missed opportunity.

Concerns are particularly strong on Ultra-Processed Foods (UPFs), where the adopted text remains limited and fails to reflect the growing scientific and policy attention to their role in non-communicable diseases. In line with positions previously expressed in communications by Eat Europe and Farm Europe, we believe a more explicit and science-based approach to UPFs is needed to properly address dietary risk factors for cardiovascular health. 

While we acknowledge a few positive elements – such as the recognition that the main risk factor is alcohol abuse rather than consumption per se, and the emphasis on nutrition education, balanced procurement policies, and the recognition of the role of red meat within a balanced diet – we consider these insufficient to address the broader weaknesses of the report.

The text also introduces an unbalanced framing of dietary patterns, weakens ambition on energy drinks, and reopens controversial debates on front-of-pack labelling, including approaches that risk indirectly reviving wrong and misleading logic for which a few multinational corporations and member states were lobbying fiercely. Concerns remain regarding additional labelling requirements and warning labels for the wine sector, which risk creating disproportionate burdens without clear public health gains.

Overall, the adopted report reflects a lowest-common-denominator compromise that lacks strategic clarity and does not provide sufficiently effective guidance for cardiovascular disease prevention and healthy lifestyle promotion.

We will continue to work with Members of the European Parliament ahead of the plenary vote to strengthen the text and ensure a more evidence-based and courageous approach to cardiovascular health policy.

In a letter sent today to Executive Vice-President Stéphane Séjourné ahead of the forthcoming Biotech Act II, and to the Members of the EP committee on Public Health after the publication of the Draft Report on the Biotech Act I, Eat Europe and Farm Europe welcomed the European Commission’s ambition to strengthen Europe’s biotechnology sector while urging policymakers to focus support on those applications that can deliver tangible benefits for society, the environment, and the European economy.

The two organisations express strong support for the ambition of Biotech Act II to develop in particular of bio-based value chains that can contribute to Europe’s strategic autonomy, industrial competitiveness, circular economy objectives, and the reduction of dependence on fossil resources.

The letter highlights the need for a stronger and more coherent EU strategy for bio-based industries, noting that while some Member States actively promote bio-based solutions, regulatory frameworks and market incentives remain fragmented and often place such innovations at a disadvantage compared with established alternatives.

Regarding novel food and food produced through advanced biotechnological processes, including precision fermentation and cell-based production, both in the framework of the current negotiations on the Biotech Act I and the future proposal on Biotech Act II, the organisations call for a cautious and science-based approach.

“The debate on biotechnology is increasingly driven by promises rather than demonstrated results. Europe should focus on addressing real and immediate needs, rather than being guided by biotech hype. Industrial biotechnology can already contribute to reducing our dependence on fossil-based resources and support the transition to a more sustainable economy. By contrast, many of the claims associated with novel food technologies lack robust scientific validation and do not warrant public funding or preferential regulatory treatment. Biotechnological applications in the novel food sector should therefore be subject to particularly stringent assessment standards, comparable to those applied in the pharmaceutical sector,” said Luigi Scordamaglia, President of Eat Europe.

While unfortunately and inappropriately some attempt to add “novel food and innovative food” is ongoing in the European Parliament’s discussions on Biotech Act I, Eat Europe and Farm Europe stress that existing evidence regarding the long-term health impacts and environmental performance of precision fermentation and cultivated-food technologies remains incomplete and raise serious questions. Current sustainability assessments often rely on assumptions concerning future industrial scalability, energy consumption, impact on environment and production systems that have yet to be fully demonstrated. 

For this reason, the organisations argue that public support schemes or dedicated State aid measures for such food technologies would be premature in the absence of robust, independent and transparent scientific evidence confirming their claimed benefits.

The letter also underlines the strategic importance of European agriculture in ensuring food security and resilience.

Eat Europe and Farm Europe therefore call on the European Commission to ensure that the Biotech Act II is built around clear principles of sustainability, safety, scientific evidence, and technological responsibility, while preserving Europe’s high standards for the protection of human health, the environment and consumers.

“Food security cannot be reduced to the industrial capacity to manufacture ingredients in technological facilities. Europe’s food sovereignty has been built on a productive agricultural sector rooted in rural communities across the continent. Farmers must remain at the centre of Europe’s food system. 

Europe can and should become a global leader in biotechnology. But leadership is not about chasing every technological trend. It means directing innovation where it delivers clear public value, measurable environmental benefits and greater strategic autonomy,” concluded Yves Madre, President of Farm Europe.

Farm Europe and Eat Europe express serious concerns regarding the draft third amendment to the German Animal Husbandry Labelling Act – recently notified to the European Commission – which introduces a mandatory classification system with significant implications for intra-EU and international trade.

While the objective of improving transparency for consumers is shared, the proposed framework risks becoming a technical barrier to trade by extending compliance obligations to importers of pork and processed meat products. This expansion goes beyond existing EU minimum standards, which are already among the most stringent worldwide in the field of animal welfare.

In particular, mandatory labelling requirements for imported products introduce additional operational complexity and risk undermining trade flows, without delivering meaningful added value in terms of animal welfare, which is already ensured through robust EU legislation and established control systems.

The proposed approach also risks undermining the work of millions of European livestock farmers, who already operate under very high standards of animal welfare, food safety, and environmental sustainability. The introduction of classification schemes that may automatically penalise certain production systems, regardless of actual on-farm improvements over time, could create market distortions and mislead consumers.

The sector reiterates the need for a fully harmonised EU approach, to avoid regulatory fragmentation across Member States and to ensure fair and level playing field conditions within the Single Market.

In this context, strong expectations are placed on the forthcoming EU Livestock Strategy, which should provide a coherent and forward-looking framework recognising the strategic role of European livestock farming, the importance of animal proteins in balanced diets, and the need to invest in innovation, digitalisation, and competitiveness.

Only through coordinated EU-level policies will it be possible to support productivity, strengthen rural resilience, and preserve Europe’s agricultural diversity, avoiding a structural decline with potentially significant economic, social, and environmental consequences.

Therefore, Farm Europe and Eat Europe call upon the European Commission to engage in constructive work within the framework of marketing standards in order to incentivise and better structure segmentation strategies designed to meet specific consumer expectations.

Farm Europe and Eat Europe welcome today’s vote by the European Parliament, which adopted at second reading the Council position at first reading on New Genomic Techniques (NGTs). This step is bringing this long-awaited Regulation to its final adoption. After a long way of negotiation, European farmers will finally have the tools they urgently need to strengthen the resilience, competitiveness and sustainability of the agricultural sector.

Today marks an important day for EU agriculture. NGTs are very much needed and farmers are ready to exploit their full potential. This vote declares that the European Parliament has decided to choose science over ideology. That gives farmers the certainty they have long awaited.

By confirming the compromise reached during trilogue negotiations, the European Parliament has sent a strong signal of its commitment to responsible support of the sustainability and competitiveness of EU agricultural enterprises. The Regulation provides a clear regulatory framework which is finally enabling the concrete deployment of innovation. These innovations have become essential to address the challenges posed by climate change altogether with increasing pressure from pests and diseases, water resilience, and the reduction in available crop protection products.

The agreement offers a much-needed opportunity for both farmers and consumers. It will support the path towards sustainable intensification. This is 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 too often placed ideology ahead of data and science.

Farm Europe and Eat Europe now call on the Commission and the Member States to ensure the swift and effective implementation of the Regulation, so that the benefits of these innovations reach farmers and consumers on the ground without delay. The work does not end with today’s vote: clear, predictable and workable implementing rules will be essential to deliver on the promise of this framework and to keep European agriculture competitive in the global market.

Farm Europe acknowledges the Council’s adoption today of a partial general approach on the National and Regional Partnership Plans (NRPP) and European Competitiveness Fund (ECF) legislative files. Further work needs to be carried out and deepened in order to fully support European farmers in their transition towards more efficient, resilient and profitable food systems and to ensure that the EU delivers on its sovereignty objectives.

Following their endorsement by Coreper on 14 June, Ministers reached agreement on key elements of these proposals. This marks a major step in the negotiations on the post-2027 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), locking the Council’s position on key elements while allowing work to move forward on others. Budgetary and other MFF-related elements will be addressed as part of the broader package negotiations.

Regarding the National and Regional Partnership Plans (NRPP) Regulation, Farm Europe acknowledges the achieved progress while stressing that several crucial issues remain unresolved. The Council’s partial general approach maintains the CAP as a chapter within the future National and Regional Partnership Plans rather than as an autonomous policy, raising important questions about the long-term governance and visibility of the CAP. 

While the Council retained the list of CAP measures in the NRP Regulation, the current approach does not reintroduce an environmental and production measure financed entirely through the CAP budget. Any environmental measures remain subject to co-financing requirements. Farm Europe considers that such a fully CAP-funded measure is necessary to ensure the financial credibility and balanced implementation of the policy across all Member States. 

Moreover, the application of the “Do No Significant Harm” principle to the CAP remains unfit for purpose for agriculture. Instead, it should be addressed within the CAP-specific framework, in line with the principle that sectoral legislation should prevail over horizontal rules.

Furthermore, Farm Europe regrets that the Council has not yet established within the EU Crisis Facility a dedicated agricultural reinsurance instrument, despite repeated calls from Agriculture Ministers, Commissioner Hansen and numerous Members of the European Parliament. 

Finally, the transitional derogation foreseen for 2028 reflects the considerable complexity foreseen in drafting and approving the new National and Regional Partnership Plans, highlighting the inconsistency of merging various funds and related policy implementations, and the need for distinct CAP plans. Enlargement discussions also make it advisable to provide for an autonomous review of the CAP framework, independent of developments in other regulations. 

As regards the European Competitiveness Fund (ECF), Farm Europe considers that this fund should offer an essential source of additional funding, complementing the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), to support the transition towards more efficient and resilient food systems. To deliver on this objective, earmarking under the Fund must be binding, transparent, predictable and genuinely accessible to farming sectors.

The precisions introduced by the Council’s partial general approach to embrace a broader food systems perspective are welcome. While these additions represent a positive step forward, several critical elements remain absent. As acknowledged by the European Parliament Rapporteur Carlo Fidanza, the Competitiveness Fund should be a key instrument to finance large-scale projects of European interest that exceed the capacity of individual Member States. These investments are considered essential to reinforce the resilience of the EU’s agri-food system, particularly in light of increasing climate, economic, and geopolitical pressures.

Against a backdrop of growing geopolitical instability, food security must be recognised as a strategic component of Europe’s economic resilience and overall security. Farm Europe therefore calls for a dedicated allocation within the ECF to support strategic storage capacities for agricultural products and critical inputs, as well as targeted support for digital and water resilience infrastructures in the agricultural sector. Such investments are essential to safeguarding agricultural production, strengthening resilience to climate and market shocks, and preserving European rural areas’ vitality.

Farm Europe therefore looks to Ireland, in its Presidency role, to provide strong leadership and ensure progress on these key priorities, with the objective of safeguarding the CAP’s autonomy, predictability and unity, while also enhancing support and investment opportunities through the ECF.

Farm Europe and EAT Europe welcome the adoption by the European Parliament in Strasbourg of the agreement on the revision of the Common Market Organisation (CMO) regulation, following the successful interinstitutional negotiations led by rapporteur Céline Imart. This vote confirms a major step forward for both farmers and consumers. It strengthens the position of farmers in the food supply chain through enhanced contractual relations and improved possibilities for producers to organise collectively. It also establishes clearer rules regarding the use of meat-related denominations, protecting consumers from misleading practices and safeguarding the value of agricultural production.

We warmly congratulate MEP Céline Imart for her leadership and determination throughout this process, as well as all Members of the European Parliament who supported this important reform. We also acknowledge the engagement of the European Commission, notably Commissioner Hansen, and the Member States that contributed to reaching this result.

The Parliament’s endorsement sends a clear signal: words matter, transparency matters, and farmers deserve a fairer position within the food chain. Consumers must be able to make informed choices based on accurate information about the products they purchase, while producers must be protected against unfair competition and market confusion.

The agreement represents a significant achievement in line with the objectives of the “Words Matter” campaign launched by Farm Europe and EAT Europe in 2024. By recognising the need for stronger protection of meat denominations and excluding cellular and lab-grown products from using meat-related terms, Europe has taken an important step towards greater clarity and coherence in food labelling.

At the same time, the strengthening of contractual relations and producer organisation tools constitutes tangible progress in addressing the long-standing imbalance of power within the food chain. These measures should contribute to improving farmers’ bargaining power, increasing predictability, and creating fairer market conditions.

Today’s vote is not the end of the journey. Farm Europe and EAT Europe underline that work must continue in the context of the forthcoming CAP reform package, which includes a broader revision of the CMO regulation.

This next phase will provide an opportunity to further reinforce farmers’ position in the food chain, improve market resilience, restore clear rules and financial allocations for sectorial interventions, and continue efforts to ensure that consumers receive clear and transparent information. In this regard, particular attention should be given to reinforcing marketing standards, securing coherent reference thresholds (former intervention prices), with updated and differentiated figures adapted to economic and sectoral realities, as a key tool to better guide market management and intervention logic. The reform should also strengthen and upgrade the School Fruit and Vegetable Scheme, ensuring greater effectiveness, better targeting food education at school, with an increased impact on healthy consumption habits. In addition, it should reflect on the establishment of comprehensive crisis prevention and management mechanisms, including the possible development of strategic stocks to respond more effectively to market disruptions and food insecurity for the most needed. This work has already been engaged by the EP rapporteur on the CMO, Mr Sargiacomo. 

Following the Commissioner’s recent statement to the European Parliament on sustainable biofuels, Farm Europe has written to Commissioner Tzitzikóstas to recall that EU crop-based biofuels should be fully included in the category of sustainable biofuels. They do not carry a high indirect land-use change (ILUC) risk, have not contributed to higher food prices or land displacement, and generate significant co-products including high-protein animal feed, advanced biofuels and biochemicals. Far from competing with food security, their production actively supports it.

The ongoing trend of agricultural land abandonment across the EU — driven by insufficient farm profitability — should led the European Commission to strengthen the demand from EU crop-based biofuel production, reinforcing food sovereignty, EU strategic autonomy, and rural economic resilience, and paving the way to step up other bioeconomy streams.

Therefore, Farm Europe calls on the Commission to uphold the principle of technological neutrality across all relevant legislative frameworks — including the ongoing revision of CO₂ standards for light- and heavy-duty vehicles — and to ensure that all sustainable renewable fuels are duly recognised. Crop-based EU biofuels are an immediately deployable, affordable decarbonisation tool that draws on existing infrastructure and vehicle fleets, generates income for EU farmers, and supports Europe’s energy sovereignty.

The letter also raises a critical market integrity concern: imports of Annex IX biofuels from China rose sevenfold between 2017 and 2023, reaching approximately 3 million tonnes — roughly 20% of total EU biofuels consumption. A substantial share of these imports has been identified as fraudulent, involving the mislabelling of virgin palm oil and its derivatives as used cooking oil or other qualifying feedstocks. This fraud, documented by the European Court of Auditors (2016 and 2023) and acknowledged in the Commission’s own implementing decision of 18 July 2025, is structurally incentivised by the double-counting mechanism under the Renewable Energy Directive.

Farm Europe warns that without addressing this fraud, the genuine availability of advanced biofuels is markedly overstated, and the case for marginalising crop-based EU biofuels rests on a distorted picture of the market.

Today, the European Commission presented its long-awaited Fertilisers Action Plan. Farm Europe welcomes the recognition by the European Commission of the scale of the challenge and the need for urgent actions. However, key practical elements are missing to send a strong signal to farmers and to the industry such as the level of the most needed emergency support via the crisis reserve as well as concrete policy directions ahead of the ETS revisions, when it comes to the trajectory for free allowances and CBAM related to fertilisers.

The commitment to create pathways between CRCF and ETS revenues is a move in the right direction to create a true business model for emission reductions via incentives for farmers, without agriculture being covered by ETS, but this commitment should be accompanied by stronger short term measures to overcome the ongoing crisis.

The intention to guarantee policy coherence between the fertilisers action plan and the up-coming livestock strategy is also a positive orientation of the action plan. In that regard, the willingness to promote the movement of nutrients from livestock regions with structural surpluses to regions with nutrient needs within the single market is a good step forward. The will to unlock the potential of digestate via an extension of the RENURE Act, boosting biomethane production, fostering bio-based fertilisers opening up the scope for innovation enhancing circularity are also steps in the right direction.

In practical terms, the focus of EU policy should be “efficiency”, moving away from regulations that discourage production or even encourage reductions. The option for Member States to re-open their CAP strategic plan focusing on efficiency is a positive signal which is blurred by mixing new potential ecoschemes with agro-environmental measures while complementarity between those interventions should be encouraged, clarifying the perimeter of the revision of national strategic plans.

Those medium to long term steps forward of the action plan should urgently be accompanied by short term relief to insure continuity of EU food systems facing a major shock since the triggering of the war in Ukraine, aggravated by the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz. European farmers are facing an increasingly untenable situation, which is already reflected by the losses of agricultural land across Europe.

With nitrogen fertiliser prices still 70% above 2024 levels in April 2026, European farmers are already reducing acreage and switching away from certain crops, in particular wheat. The Commission’s emergency agricultural reserve remains undefined in amount and eligibility criteria. The only fully operational short-term measure — the temporary State aid framework adopted on 29 April — rests with Member States. This is not enough. Farmers need to know today what support they can count on before the next sowing season.

Farm Europe and Eat Europe have addressed a letter to the European Commission raising concerns regarding the import of genetically modified (GM) cane sugar from Brazil and the implications for compliance with EU legislation, traceability standards, and market transparency after the recent provisional entry into force of the EU–Mercosur Agreement.

Brazil, the world’s largest producer and exporter of sugar, authorises and cultivates genetically modified sugar cane varieties alongside conventional ones. However, according to available information, no effective segregation between GM and non-GM sugar cane is carried out during processing, raising concerns that raw sugar exported to the European Union may derive from mixed production streams.

Over the past five years, EU Member States have imported approximately 3.6 million tonnes of sugar from Brazil, including more than 750,000 tonnes in the last year alone. These volumes are expected to rise further under the EU–Mercosur Agreement, which introduces a new annual duty-free quota of 180,000 tonnes of sugar.

Under EU legislation, food and feed consisting of, containing, or produced from genetically modified organisms must be authorised before being placed on the EU market. While certain genetically modified sugar beet varieties are authorised in the Union for import and processing, no genetically modified sugar cane varieties appear to be currently authorised under the EU GMO framework for food and feed uses.

In their letter, Eat Europe and Farm Europe warn that the inability to reliably distinguish between GM and non-GM sugar imports raises significant concerns regarding regulatory compliance, traceability, consumer transparency, food safety, and environmental protection.

The organisations are calling on the European Commission to clarify which measures are currently in place — or are envisaged — to ensure that sugar imported into the EU complies with existing GMO legislation and that adequate traceability and control are guaranteed throughout the supply chain. Eat Europe and Farm Europe emphasise that, in the context of bilateral relations with Brazil and the implementation phase of the EU–Mercosur Agreement, efforts should be made to ensure effective segregation between GM and non-GM sugar production streams in order to prevent non-compliant products from entering the European market.

The letter also requests further information on the implementation of the monitoring mechanisms established under Regulation (EU) 2026/687 concerning safeguard clauses within the EU–Mercosur framework. In particular, Eat Europe and Farm Europe seek clarification regarding the tools and data sources the Commission intends to rely on to monitor import volumes, price developments, and market dynamics for sensitive agricultural sectors such as sugar, meat products, and rice.

The organisations underline that effective and timely monitoring of trade flows is essential not only for the possible activation of safeguard measures, but also for ensuring compliance with EU regulatory requirements related to genetically modified organisms and traceability.

Eat Europe and Farm Europe also stress the importance of transparency for market operators and stakeholders, calling for accessible monitoring instruments such as dedicated dashboards or reporting mechanisms allowing up-to-date tracking of relevant market developments.

Farm Europe warmly welcome today’s adoption by the European Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development (COMAGRI) of the draft opinion by MEP Carlo Fidanza on the European Competitiveness Fund (ECF).

The ECF constitutes essential additional funding opportunities outside the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) to contribute to the transition to more efficient food systems. It is therefore essential to explicitly mention agriculture, food security, and agri-food value chains within the ECF. The earmarking must be binding, transparent, predictable and clearly opened to farmers. 

The draft opinion identifies the Competitiveness Fund as a key instrument to finance large-scale projects of European interest that exceed the capacity of individual Member States. These investments are considered essential to reinforce the resilience of the EU’s agri-food system, particularly in light of increasing climate, economic, and geopolitical pressures.

Against a backdrop of growing geopolitical instability, the Committee underlines that control over food resources is a key component of economic resilience and contributes to the EU’s broader security and defence capacity. An allocated budget in the ECF for strategic storage capacity for agricultural products and key inputs is therefore essential.

Farm Europe underlines the necessity, as stated in the opinion, of a dedicated ECF support to innovation and water in the agricultural sector, notably water resilience investments (irrigation efficiency, water storage, sustainable management of water resources for agriculture) and digitalisation (precision agriculture, digital services, decision-support tools, and data infrastructures). Such investments are deemed critical to maintaining agricultural production and preserving Europe’s agri-food excellence.

We now urge the European Parliament to confirm this positive signal in plenary. A strong endorsement will provide clear and positive perspectives for the entire agri-food sector.