EU agriculture and fisheries ministers will meet in Brussels on Monday 24 March to discuss the future of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP).
After a quick initial round table discussion in February, ministers will, under the chairmanship of Czesław Siekierski, this time discuss the ‘Vision for Agriculture and Food’ (see EUROPE 13586/12) in greater detail.
Discussions at expert level on 17 March demonstrated the desire of EU countries to maintain a sufficient and independent budget for the Common Agricultural Policy from 2028 onwards, at a time when the European Commission is considering merging certain funds, including those for the CAP and cohesion policy, in the next budget programme (see EUROPE 13601/19). Another request often made by a majority of delegations is to retain a CAP comprising two pillars (direct aid and market expenditure for the first, rural development for the second).
As usual, the Central and Eastern European countries will be raising the need for external convergence of direct payments. On the whole, the experts welcomed the priorities set: recognition of the strategic role of agriculture, competitiveness, generational renewal, ensuring decent incomes and cutting administrative formalities.
The European Commissioner for Agriculture, Christophe Hansen, will present the ‘Vision for Agriculture and Food’ and forthcoming initiatives (reciprocity of standards for imported products, wine, simplification of CAP rules).
Under ‘any other business’, the Polish Presidency of the Council will discuss the results of the high-level conference entitled ‘The Common Agricultural Policy for Food Security’, which was held in Warsaw on 5 March. Romania will once again be asking to be able to use rural development funds to enable breeders to invest in breeding animals (https://aeur.eu/f/g24 ).
The outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Hungary will also be discussed by the European ministers.
Fisheries. During an informal lunch, fisheries ministers will discuss the future of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), from the perspective, according to several sources, of competitiveness and simplification, as requested by the Polish Presidency of the EU Council (see EUROPE 13602/15). The idea is to provide guidance to the Commission as it prepares its proposals for the EU’s next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for 2028-2034.
The mission letter of the European Commissioner for Fisheries, Costas Kadis, entrusts him with carrying out a comprehensive evaluation of the CFP. The CFP has not been overhauled since 2013.
In addition, under ‘any other business’, the Netherlands, supported by a group of countries (Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Portugal, Romania and Spain), will be calling for a review of the current rules to allow aid for the modernisation of fishing fleets (https://aeur.eu/f/g21 ). According to the document, “we call upon the Commission to consider measures to support the energy transition and modernization of European fleet segments that lack investment capacity in the years to come”.
Two other ‘any other business’ items are planned on fisheries: the implementation of the provisions of Article 14 of the fisheries control regulation concerning the permitted margin of tolerance applied to unsorted landings of small pelagic fisheries (request from the Latvian and Lithuanian delegations: https://aeur.eu/f/g23 ) and the launch of the EU-wide communication campaign on aquaculture (intervention from the Commission: https://aeur.eu/f/g22 ). (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)