On Thursday 30 April, the European Parliament proposed a series of measures to boost productivity in the livestock farming sector.
The European Commission plans to adopt a European strategy on livestock farming on 7 July.
In adopting (426 votes in favour, 119 against and 40 abstentions) the own-initiative report by Carlo Fidanza (ECR, Italian) on this sector, the European Parliament recommended measures to preserve the budgets of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in order to maintain stable financial support for livestock farmers (see EUROPE 13831/15). MEPs call on the Commission, on the basis of the EU’s workstream on livestock farming, to set up a high-level group on livestock farming, along the lines of the high-level group on wine policy, involving all the stakeholders concerned.
By adopting an amendment tabled by several MEPs, the European Parliament called for incentives for extensive, grassland-based livestock farming, particularly under the CAP.
The Commission is urged to stop funding NGOs that engage in targeted lobbying and convey a misleading, militant and ideological image of livestock farming in Europe.
The Farm Europe think-tank welcomed the European Parliament’s call to “re-establish production as the central orientation of public policy, taking into account the diversity of models, while also considering the contribution of livestock farming to the environment and the rural economy”.
Link to the report: https://aeur.eu/f/lt0 (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)