The French Minister of Agriculture, Julien Denormandie, said on Monday 17 January in Brussels that he had asked the European Commission to present a list of possible measures to help the pigmeat sector, which has been in difficulty for many months, at the next meeting of the Special Committee on Agriculture (SCA).
This strong concern for the pig sector was shared by many EU Member States at Monday’s Agriculture Council, Mr Denormandie underlined at a press conference.
The Council of the EU has asked the Commission to “come back with proposals” at the next SCA “to find the right measures”, added the President-in-Office of this Council. He said that concerns have also been expressed about poultry meat and high input prices.
Janusz Wojciechowski, the European Commissioner for Agriculture, told the press that positive trends are appearing on the pigmeat market (rising prices for piglets) and he hoped that this will be reflected in the price of pigmeat in Europe. “The pros and cons of different solutions must be weighed up”, he said.
But Wojciechowski recalled that he believed that EU market measures were not necessarily the best solution.
He recalled the possibilities for targeted national measures in the pig sector as part of rural development programmes and State aid. Where difficulties may also be related to Covid-19, the recently extended Temporary Framework may also offer possibilities, the Commissioner concluded.
Following the Czech request for measures, 12 EU countries called for EU action to support the pig sector, with several of them referring to Article 219 of Regulation 1308/2013 on the common market organisation (CMO), namely exceptional market measures. Ministers from five countries agreed that the Commission should continue to monitor the situation closely and stand ready to take appropriate support measures, if necessary, and two other delegations said that market measures should only be used as a last resort.
Trade. The EU Ministers also discussed the latest developments on the agricultural aspects of the trade negotiations. Mr Wojciechowski said that the EU will resume negotiations with India on a free trade agreement and on the protection of geographical indications. In the course of 2022, “we also hope to make significant progress with New Zealand, Australia and Indonesia on the free trade agreements under negotiation”, the Commissioner added.
At the press conference, Julien Denormandie recalled that France wanted to tighten controls on agricultural imports into the EU by gradually imposing the same health and environmental standards as in Europe (see EUROPE 12870/4). Mr Denormandie wants to actively promote the inclusion of ‘mirror clauses’ in European trade treaties to ensure convergence of standards on both sides after signing. This is a real expectation of the Member States, he said. At the same time, Paris wants to speed up negotiations on the adoption of a mechanism to ban the import of agricultural materials into the EU that have contributed to deforestation in their countries of production. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)