MEPs from the European Parliament’s Committees on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) and on Agriculture (AGRI) will finalise, on Friday 10 September, their position on the EU’s ‘Farm to Fork’ (F2F) strategy for a fair, healthy and environmentally friendly food system.
The draft joint report by Anja Hazekamp (GUE/NGL, Netherlands) and Herbert Dorfmann (EPP, Italy) on this ‘European Green Deal’ proposal was presented last January (see EUROPE 12632/19).
Since then, it has been the subject of a huge effort to find the right balance between environmental requirements, the added value of a sustainable food policy and the future economic performance of agriculture (see EUROPE 12651/10, 12644/7).
More than 2,200 amendments had been tabled, reflecting the complexity of the issues at stake and the need to take into account the opinions of the parliamentary committees on development (DEVE), international trade (INTA) and fisheries (PECH). They were reduced to 48 compromises in 87 pages.
Ahead of the vote, the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) again called for the European Parliament to “fully back the strategy and push the ambition further”. According to the BEUC, the “EU Parliament must call for a food environment that helps consumers shift to healthy and sustainable diets”. In a press release published on Tuesday 7 September, 27 agricultural organisations recommend that the European Parliament not render the ‘Farm to Fork’ strategy “completely unsustainable” for the agri-food sector. They point out that some studies on the impact of the strategy “show particularly worrying initial trends”. They call on MEPs to vote against the “most damaging ones that endanger the future of our European farms and their related industries”.
MEPs will vote on the compromise amendments on Thursday 9 September. The final report will be voted on Friday. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang with Lionel Changeur)