On Tuesday 8 February in Strasbourg, Cem Özdemir, the German Federal Minister of Agriculture, said that the German strategic plan implementing the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) should “soon” be submitted to the European Commission.
Germany is one of five countries, together with Belgium, Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia, that did not submit their strategic plans by the 1 January 2022 deadline (see EUROPE 12884/8). Cem Özdemir explained alongside the informal meeting of EU agriculture ministers that he had taken charge of the strategic plan but could not change it. The plan will soon be submitted to the Commission, he promised.
For Belgium, David Clarinval, the Federal Minister for Agriculture, told the press on Monday 7 February that the Walloon strategic plan should be able to be presented to the European Commission “quickly”. Political debates are still ongoing on the Flemish strategic plan. “The process should speed up in Flanders and we should be able to achieve this fairly quickly”, Clarinval said.
The Bulgarian Minister indicated that the national plan could be submitted to the Commission within a fortnight.
The Commission is expected to finally adopt the strategic plans around September 2022 (see EUROPE 12877/24).
Call to order. On Tuesday 8 February in Strasbourg, the Commissioner for Agriculture Janusz Wojciechowski said, again alongside the informal Agriculture Council meeting, that latecomers risk having the Commission’s decision on their strategic plan being delivered later than the decision on the plans of other EU countries. “We are analysing the plans of 22 Member States ”, the Commissioner said. He called on the countries lagging behind to submit their strategic plans as soon as possible, as they are needed to receive CAP payments. The new CAP will enter into force on 1 January 2023. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)