At the Agriculture Council meeting in Brussels on Monday 11 December, Romania, supported by the Bulgarian, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Polish and Slovak delegations, called for an extension until 2024 of the derogations from the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) rules on Good Agriculture and Environmental Conditions 7 and 8 (GAEC 7 and 8), which concern crop rotation and set-aside, in order to increase production capacity in the context of the war in Ukraine.
This issue was already put to the Council in November and the European Commission’s response has not changed (see EUROPE 13296/2).
Janusz Wojciechowski, the European Commissioner for Agriculture, has reportedly pointed out that the situation on the markets is different from that which prevailed when these derogations were implemented in 2023. There would no longer be the same uncertainties linked to food safety.
From a legal point of view, extending these derogations from cross-compliance would require the submission of a proposal to amend the basic regulation and a co-decision procedure between the Council and Parliament with a view to a decision, which could take some time. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)