In addition to the negotiations on fishing quotas for the main fish stocks in the Atlantic and the North Sea in 2018 (see EUROPE 11920), the meeting of European agriculture ministers in Brussels on Monday 11 and Tuesday 12 December will provide the opportunity for an initial debate on the future of the common agricultural policy (CAP) after 2020.
With Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan attending the WTO ministerial conference in Buenos Aires, European Commission Vice-President Jyrki Katainen will present the recent communication on the future of the CAP to ministers (see EUROPE 11915).
Ministers will be asked to give their responses to two questions: - What are the central strategic issues for the future of CAP that stem from the communication?; - Does the communication cover all key issues and challenges for the post-2020 CAP and, if not, what are the gaps?
After the meeting, Bulgaria, which will assume the Presidency of the Council of the EU from 1 January 2018, will present a roadmap leading to closer analysis of the communication. The Commission is due to adopt its formal legislative proposals on the reform of the CAP before summer next year.
Unfair trading practices. With a view to tackling unfair trading practices through EU-level legislation, the Slovak delegation, backed by Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Romania and Slovenia, will present a a paper calling on the Commission to undertake an impact assessment on the food supply chain and present its results not later than February 2018.
At the High-Level Forum in Brussels on Wednesday 6 December, Commissioner Hogan once again stated that he would propose measures “that seek to improve the functioning of the food supply chain to help farmers strengthen their position on the market and protect them from future shocks”. He did not, however, state whether this would mean legislation. This proposals are expected around April-May.
Ministers will be briefed on the results and conclusions of the Commission conference, “Modern Biotechnologies in Agriculture”, which was held in Brussels at the end of September. The European Commission has yet to rule on whether plants developed through new plant selection techniques should be viewed as GMOs or not. The European Court of Justice is due to deliver a ruling on mutagenesis on 20 December which will inform the thinking of the European institutions.
Ministers will also be informed of the conclusions of a ministerial meeting, attended by Austria, Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, on African swine fever which took place in Prague on 8 and 9 November.
Lastly, the agricultural of regulation deriving from the “omnibus” negotiation (see EUROPE 11910) will be put to the vote by the European Parliament in Strasbourg on 12 December, before being formally adopted by the Council. The provisions of these texts will thus be able to come into effect from the start after 2018. (Original version in French)