Latest from Brussels Archives - Page 9 of 38 - Agricultural and Rural Convention

We’re Hiring! Call for CAP Policy Analyst and Animator for 2022

December 14, 2021 ARC

ARC2020 – The Agricultural and Rural Convention has worked on the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) since 2010. Run by a small team and guided by an international group of board members, ARC carries out research, publishes regular content and organises debates and events on key CAP-related issues. ARC is now looking for a part-time position to support the CAP Strategic Plan project in two related areas: analysing and developing content on the CAP Strategic Plans; organising NGO and institutional networking around the national strategic plans implementing the next CAP post 2022. […]

Save Bees and Farmers! – European Citizens’ Initiative Must Reach 1 Million Signatures by September 30th

September 7, 2021 ARC

The European Citizens’ Initiative ‘Save Bees and Farmers!’ alliance – a network of civil society organisations in agriculture, health and environmental protection – is calling on the European Commission to propose legislation to phase out synthetic pesticides by 2035, to restore biodiversity, and to support farmers in the transition. […]

Civil Society Organisations Demand Open and Ambitious Approval of CAP Plans

September 1, 2021 ARC

The design and approval of the future 27 CAP Strategic Plans are key moments to demonstrate the true commitment towards a fairer, greener, and rural-proofed CAP reform. The European Commissioner for Agriculture, Mr Wojciechowski, promised ‘full transparency’ and ‘open dialogue beyond DG AGRI and agri-ministers’. Now ARC can reveal that a Joint Letter has been sent by civil society organisations to the Commission to put their promises in practice. […]

CAP and Climate – What Exactly did Auditors Find?

July 6, 2021 Oliver Moore

€100 billion of CAP funds attributed to climate action had “little impact” on greenhouse gas emissions. That’s according the European Court of Auditors, in a report released 21st June. Here we unpack in detail where and how CAP is failing on climate, and what the auditors recommend. Part one of two – part two will critically assess the report, with a particular focus on organic farming. By Oliver Moore. […]

Flagrant Vagueness | Commission Launches a Vision Without a Strategy

July 5, 2021 ARC

The European Commission published its Communication on A long-Term Vision for the EU’s rural areas on Wednesday June 30th. There is much that’s worth recognising and lauding in this, including a new ‘Rural Pact’. However there are serious gaps and significant blind spots. In particular, the how and when elements – strategy and immediacy – are conspicuous in their absence. […]

Parliament CAP-itulation | Council-Driven Compromise Deal Scuppers Fair, Green CAP

June 25, 2021 Oliver Moore

Parliament CAP-itualtes on all major elements of fairness for farmers and environmental standards. A leaked negotiating document reveals just 85% convergence, huge flexibilities and exemptions, all remaining GAECs weakened, eco-schemes weakened, and even the introduction of brand new exemptions that have never been in the negotiations before. Council wins, people and planet loose. […]

EU Green Deal | Good Food Good Farming Campaign To Get Citizens On Board

June 9, 2021 ARC

A year on from the launch of the EU Farm to Fork and Biodiversity Strategies, the Good Food Good Farming coalition is running an exciting social media campaign to raise citizens’ awareness of the problems of industrial agriculture and illustrate a path towards a better future for food and farming. […]

Parliament Holds Firm as Council Demands Rejected – for now

May 28, 2021 Oliver Moore

Despite a sequence of late night meetings and to-and-fro of proposals covering most of the contentious outstanding areas, the so-called jumbo-trilogues talks have ended without agreement. Parliament and Council failed to reconcile their positions on a number of key areas. The remaining areas include”green architecture” (a number of GAECs, ring-fencing of support for eco-schemes and environmental investments, tracking climate spending, alignment to the Green Deal), internal convergence, the social dimension and coupled income support. So what happened? […]

Withdraw The CAP Movement Takes on Timmermans, Trilogues and Parliament Plenary

May 24, 2021 ARC

The Withdraw the CAP movement emerged in recent months to challenge Europe’s biggest policy spend. This initiative of young people, many climate strikers from the Fridays for Future movement, have taken the EU’s top brass to task over the gap between environmental rhetoric and business-as-usual reality. SO what happened at their meeting last with with Vice-President of the EU Commission Frans Timmermans, of EU Green Deal Fame. Here the group who met him give us the lowdown, and tell us what they are focused on next for withdraw the cap. […]

Last Week of CAP Negotiations: What’s the Deal?

May 20, 2021 Matteo Metta

As the negotiations start to come to a close, this article focuses on the remaining fair and green considerations. We shed light on the state of play in the CAP post 2022 inter-institutional negotiations, particularly in relation to those articles of the CAP Strategic Plan Regulation which are still open to political and technical discussions. So what’s the deal? […]

New Genomic Techniques in the EU – on the Road to Deregulation?

May 17, 2021 Hans Wetzels

The European Commission wants to change legislation for biotechnology. Many in civil society fear an all-out deregulation agenda. ‘We have not announced a deregulation of new genomic techniques,’ the Commission rebuts. ‘But we would look at suitable regulatory oversight with very limited scope.’ Hans Wetzels presents an overview of developments in the regulation of new genomic techniques. […]

Rural Semester as a Tool to Deliver a Truly Holistic Policy for Rural Areas

April 15, 2021 ARC

This paper, written by Marjorie Jouen of the Jacques Delors Institute, has benefitted from inputs and reflections of Marion Eckardt, Maria José Murciano-Sanchez, Michael Schmitz, Francesco Mantino and Hannes Lorenzen expressing themselves in their personal capacity. […]

Cut The Crap, Withdraw The CAP!

April 13, 2021 ARC

Climate striker Sommer Ackerman became active in protests for a better CAP in October 2020. She combines activism at EU level in the WithdrawTheCAP campaign with activism at national level to make agri-food policy change in Finland. […]

Super Trilogue Weakens Results-Oriented CAP

April 8, 2021 Matteo Metta

The shift from compliance towards a result-oriented delivery model was highly debated in the super trilateral meeting on the 26 March 2021. Have the EU co-legislators ensured that the CAP Strategic Plans are result-oriented, while still holding the delivery model accountable for taxpayers? Here is our analysis on the main outcomes of the meeting. […]

EU Not Doing its Sustainability Homework on Mercosur

March 31, 2021 Hans Wetzels

An inquiry by European Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly has found that the European Commission should have concluded an updated sustainability impact assessment before signing the EU-Mercosur trade deal. But will this be enough to stop national parliaments from ratifying the deal? Hans Wetzels reports. […]