On Wednesday 14 June, the European Parliament called on the European Commission to carry out a full assessment of the cumulative impact of the legislative proposals in the ‘European Green Deal’ on the Union’s agricultural sector, “which covers all dimensions of sustainability in order to guarantee food and nutritional security, the viability of farms and agricultural production in the Union”.
The European Parliament adopted (447 votes in favour, 142 against and 31 abstentions) the report by Marlene Mortler (EPP, German) on food safety, which attempts to reconcile the divergent interests in the European Parliament on the effects of the ‘European Green Deal’ on agriculture.
By adopting an amendment tabled by several MEPs from Central and Eastern European countries, the European Parliament is calling on the Council to consider, as part of the review of the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), speeding up the process of levelling out CAP aid towards the EU average in order to give farmers in Member States where this process has not yet been completed the means to meet current challenges.
In adopting another amendment from MEPs mainly from the Greens/EFA and S&D groups, MEPs stressed that immediate EU action is needed to “protect food security against threats such as climate change and biodiversity loss”.
Pesticides. The European Parliament pointed out that the Commission had presented a legislative proposal containing binding pesticide reduction targets, including a ban on their use in so-called sensitive areas, “without first offering farmers affordable and sufficiently effective pest control alternatives or taking into account the impact that the lack of tools to protect plants from harmful organisms might have on EU food security, its dependence on imports from third countries and ability to maintain proper plant health”. Furthermore, according to MEPs, this proposal does not take into account the regional specificities of European agriculture and does not include a comprehensive impact assessment including a quantification of the impacts on food production, the competitiveness of EU agriculture, the potential impact on farmers, food import dependencies, food prices and the spread of harmful organisms (see other news).
In addition, the European Parliament considers that the targeted application of new genomic techniques and the approval of seeds using these techniques in the EU are important measures to make agriculture sustainable in the context of the ‘European Green Deal’ and the ‘Farm to Fork’ strategy.
Finally, by adopting an amendment tabled by several MEPs, the European Parliament welcomed the proposed revision of EU legislation on animal welfare. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)