The EU Agriculture Ministers will meet in Luxembourg on Thursday 7 April to discuss food security and the market situation in light of the consequences of the war in Ukraine triggered by Russia.
The meeting will be chaired by Julien Denormandie, French Minister of Agriculture. The European Commission will be represented by Stella Kyriakides, Commissioner for Health, and Janusz Wojciechowski, Commissioner for Agriculture.
This is the last Agriculture Council before the French elections (presidential elections on 10 and 24 April and legislative elections on 12 and 19 June).
The ministers will discuss the recent European Commission Communication ‘Ensuring Food Security and Enhancing the Resilience of Food Systems’ and will take stock of the situation in agricultural markets (see EUROPE 12921/5). The European Commission has already presented a package of measures for agriculture, including a €500 million support plan, a temporary crisis framework for State aid, and exemptions from certain greening obligations in 2022.
The debate in the EU Council is expected to focus on the short- and medium-term effects on producers of the increase in input costs (energy, fuel, fertilisers and feed) as well as on the factors likely to influence the prices of certain products (fruit and vegetables, olive oil, wine, dairy products, beef, poultry and pigmeat). The Croatian delegation, supported by several other delegations, will call for additional temporary measures to ensure food security.
GIs. The European Commission will present its proposal for a revised system of geographical indications (GIs) for agricultural products (see other news).
LULUCF. The ministers will discuss the proposed revision of the regulation on greenhouse gas emissions and removals from land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF), which aims to reverse the current trend of a declining carbon sink in this sector.
For the 2026-2030 period, the proposal foresees the allocation of an overall target for the year 2030 of 310 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent of net GHG removals in the Union among Member States in the form of annual national targets. From 2031 onwards, non-CO2 emissions from agriculture (currently covered by the Effort Sharing Regulation, ESR) and the current LULUCF sector would be grouped under a new AFOLU (Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use) pillar, which would be assigned an EU-wide climate neutrality target in 2035. A document (https://aeur.eu/f/13b ) has been created to structure the discussions.
The EU Council will also adopt without debate conclusions on the European Commission’s communication on sustainable carbon cycles.
Avian influenza. The French Presidency of the EU Council wants to launch a debate on future vaccination against avian influenza. A questionnaire was sent to EU countries, and a summary of the results was presented to the EU Chief Veterinary Officers Group on 28 March 2022. According to a note (https://aeur.eu/f/130; in French) from the French Presidency of the EU Council, “the vast majority of delegations believe that vaccination would be a relevant and useful tool for preventing and/or controlling highly pathogenic avian influenza, in addition to current prevention and control measures”.
Finally, the EU Council will approve guidelines for the EU’s participation in the next meeting of G20 agriculture ministers in Bali, Indonesia, from 13 to 15 September 2022.
No ‘reciprocity’ yet. The subject of reciprocity of standards (and mirror clauses in particular) will be raised in June, after the European Commission presents its report on the feasibility of mirror clauses. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)