“I will no longer be an MEP as of 2 June”, said Eric Andrieu (S&D, French) speaking to some journalists on Wednesday 29 March. He is leaving the European Parliament after 11 years.
He explained that he was against holding multiple mandates, although he did not know what activity he intended to carry out after retirement. Mr Andrieu prefers to stop a year before the end of the mandate “to prepare the succession, the transition”.
In 2012, when he joined the European Parliament to replace Stéphane Le Foll, who had become Minister of Agriculture, he had to quickly familiarise himself with the negotiations on the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). “That was very difficult. Hence the idea of preparing the transition”.
Christophe Clergeau will replace Mr Andrieu on the European Parliament’s Agriculture Committee, with the aim of being elected to the European Parliament in the 2024 elections. Mr Clergeau is a member of the European Committee of the Regions.
Mr Andrieu was rapporteur on the ‘common market organisation’ (CMO) part of the CAP reform and obtained progress, for example on greater reactivity of the regulatory tools (see EUROPE 12835/1).
Mr Andrieu calls for “a new European agricultural model” and criticises the blockages in the European Parliament on the sustainable use of pesticides and the European Commission’s position in favour of new genomic techniques. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)