On Monday 20 November, the French Minister for Agriculture, Marc Fesneau, asked the European Commission to agree to a derogation in 2024 from certain rules on good agricultural and environmental condition 8 (GAEC 8), which concerns the use of set-aside land, in order to boost production in the context of the war in Ukraine.
France was supported by several countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Slovakia and Slovenia, Poland, Finland, the Netherlands, Hungary, Sweden, Malta and Latvia).
France has proposed partial application of the current GAEC 8 standard for the 2024 campaign. In practice, the 7% rate of elements favourable to biodiversity required by the regulation would be retained, but farmers would be allowed to achieve this rate solely by growing catch crops or nitrogen-fixing crops without the use of plant protection products (without being required to have a minimum share of set-aside land or non-productive elements). According to Mr Fesneau, this option is an alternative to renewing the previous derogations without jeopardising compliance with the provisions of the regulation.
Romania and Italy have asked to go further by extending the derogations for GAEC 8 and 7 (crop rotation).
“We will analyse this proposal”, said Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski, who was rather reticent about the idea (see EUROPE 13241/4).
See France’s note: https://aeur.eu/f/9lz (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)