The European Parliament's Committee on Agriculture will hold its inaugural meeting on 10 July to elect its President and Vice-Presidents (NEW).
As the 'cordon sanitaire' should be applied, the Chair of this committee will either be held by the S&D group or the EPP group.The name of the Italian Paolo De Castro (S&D) has been widely circulated to head this committee, but the latest news is that, given that an Italian has been elected President of the European Parliament, it is the EPP Group that could have the chair, but no candidate in this group has declared itself at this stage. Thus the outcome of the election is rather uncertain as to the name of the Chair of the Committee on Agriculture.
EU agricultural organisations and cooperatives (Copa-Cogeca) welcomed the increase in the number of seats on the Parliament’s Agriculture Committee, which “illustrates the strategic importance given to the subjects dealt with in this committee”. Copa-Cogeca thus hopes that this commission will retain “its strategic responsibility” for the future of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and will be able to “speak out against the trade agreement reached between the EU and Mercosur”.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development will have 48 members, compared to the current 46 (12 seats for the EPP, 10 for the S&D group, seven for Renew Europe, five for the Greens/EFA and ID, four for the ECR, three for GUE/NGL and two not belonging to any group). One third of them were already members of this committee during the last legislature.
The EPP group will be represented by Norbert Lins (appointed Coordinator), Mairead McGuinness (Ireland), Herbert Dorfmann (Italy), Anne Sander (France), Juan Ignacio Zoido Álvarez (Spain) and Marlene Mortler (Germany).
On the Social Democrats' side, the Frenchman Eric Andrieu, the Spaniard Clara Aguilera García, Mr De Castro and the German Maria Noichl are once again present.
The Renew Europe group will be represented by former Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Cioloș, former Czech Deputy Minister of Agriculture Martin Hlaváșek, former President of the Young Farmers union, Frenchman Jeremy Decerle and German Ulrike Muller. The French winegrower Irène Tolleret is an alternate.
The Greens have German Martin Häusling back, accompanied by, among others, French farmer Benoît Biteau and Austrian Sarah Wiener. The ECR group includes former Polish Minister of Agriculture Krzysztof Jurgiel and for the GUE/NGL group, Matt Carthy and Luke Ming Flanagan from Ireland.
While the ID group and the Italians of the Lega Nord hoped to obtain the presidency of this committee as well as that of the Legal Affairs Committee, the other political groups should finally form a ‘cordon sanitaire’ by blocking this appointment.
MEPs will elect their Chair and vice-Chairs at the inaugural meeting of the Agriculture Committee on 10 July in Brussels. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)