The EU’s agricultural cooperatives and organisations (Copa-Cogeca) refuted, on Friday 29 April, the claims of the European Commission’s First Executive Vice-President in charge of the Green Deal, Frans Timmermans, that fears of food shortages in Europe are unfounded.
At a press conference, Christiane Lambert, President of Copa, pointed to figures from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to challenge Mr Timmermans’ claims that there is no risk to Europe’s food supply.
Russian and Ukrainian wheat accounts for 30% of world trade and the EU is 63% dependent on Ukrainian sunflower. “The price of sunflower oil has gone through the roof and there are shortages of sunflower oil”, Ms Lambert said. She claims that there are shortages “here and there” and that only wealthy consumers will be able to cope with rising prices.
Ukraine’s wheat production feeds 400 million people and UN Secretary General António Guterres has spoken of the risk of “hurricanes of famine”, Ms Lambert reiterated.
Copa-Cogeca raised fears for next year’s production, notably due to “fertiliser shortages”. A view shared, according to Ms Lambert, also by Thierry Breton, the Commissioner responsible for the Internal Market.
“Some people claim that there is a risk of food shortages in the EU, which is not the case”, Mr Timmermans declared, on 28 April, in front of the European Parliament Committee on the Environment. Scaring people into believing that there could be food safety problems in Europe is “irresponsible and incredibly dishonest”, the Commission’s first vice-president added.
“There are those who squawk and those who work”, Ms Lambert said in response to Mr Timmermans’ statements. There may not be shortages for wheat, but this is harder to justify for maize, let alone sunflower, summarised the Copa President. A number of EU countries are sowing more sunflower to compensate for the shortfall (a 32% drop in sunflower production is expected in Ukraine).
Mr Timmermans sees no reason to change the objectives of the ’Farm to Fork’ strategy. However, according to Ms Lambert, EU Agriculture Ministers have asked to “rebalance the objectives of this strategy”. For Copa-Cogeca, we must not confuse speed with haste: the stated objectives on the reduction of plant protection products, fertilisers or non-productive land go too far.
Copa-Cogeca welcomed the measures already adopted by EU co-legislators to help EU farmers (€500 million aid, return to cultivation of the 4% set-aside land in 2022). It mentioned the need for new measures, especially for the fruit and vegetable sector, or for funds from rural development programmes.
Strategic plans. Copa-Cogeca also requested that the Commission take into account the situation in Ukraine when assessing the strategic plans of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
The Commission published on 28 April (https://aeur.eu/f/1f9 ), as it had promised, the 19 observation letters on the CAP strategic plans that it had sent at the end of March to the Member States that had finalised their drafts on time. The Commission also published the comments of some of the Member States concerned. The Commission is quite critical of the lack of ambition of the strategic plans in its observation letters to EU Member States (see EUROPE 12927/15). (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)