ARC2020 Coordinator Samuel Féret gives us a veritable cook book of the CAP – one that may have a master template, but with very varied national and regional editions. He also introduces some changes he’d like to see in Europe’s farming policy. […]
Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan appears to be sticking to his guns on the banning of pesticides in Ecological Focus Areas, despite the opposition of 18 EU Member States. So what’s next? […]
We invite you to give your assessment and to share your visions of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy in these un-common times. To this end, we will host our third debate of the year, following our livestock and milk crisis debates. Join us, get involved, get animated, make a contribution. Let’s crtitique each other’s contributions and raise our collective games. […]
Barry Finnegan of ATTAC Ireland explains how Ireland’s upper house voted – by a single ballot – against CETA last week. He also points to the wider implications of this (albeit) non-binding vote – the first of its kind in an EU member state parliament. […]
As part of CAP simplification, the European Commission is attempting to bring in some changes to greening. However a group of 18 Member States oppose three of the new, clear simple rules which happen to be stricter than the current rules. […]
What may turn out to be a very important EU Commission Rural Development event is being held in Cork, Ireland, this coming Monday. Oliver Moore explains why. […]
In his second contribution to this #MilkCrisis debate, Alan Matthews considers contributions thus far and also the recent development of EU-wide voluntary reductions as part of a €500 million package. […]
A seven part E500 million package of aid for the agri sector has been announced. Which sectors and Member States benefit? […]
In the third in our milk crisis and farm income debate series, Alan Matthews suggests that supply management is not the way to improve price and income. […]
In what has been an absolutely tumultuous week for the EU and its institutions, Jean Claude Junker has announced that the European Commission intends to approve the EU-Canada trade deal CETA without national parliament approval. […]
ARC2020’s President Hannes Lorenzen gives us his thoughts after Brexit.
A report from Friends of the Earth Europe points to serious concerns for EU farming and food due to the ongoing – and now under severe pressure TTIP talks. […]
The National Farmers Union, representing 50,000 of the largest and wealthiest farming landowners in England (and Wales), who receive the lion’s share of all subsidies provided to the UK by the EU, have voted to support the Remain campaign. How and why has this happened? Miles King explains. […]
“Ecological focus areas should be established, in particular, in order to safeguard and improve biodiversity on farms“. So say the official EU documents. And yet for these EFAs, Member States are choosing ‘productive options’ – in particular catch crops and nitrogen fixing crops – over biodiversity. Using newly released data, Sebastian Lakner shows us just how ineffective and poorly targeted EFAs are, in Germany and beyond. […]
European negotiators have struck a clumsy compromise to protect about one in 10 of the EU’s Geographical Indicators (GIs) during transatlantic trade talks with the Canadians. Protected geographical terms have long been a bone of contention on the other side of the Atlantic, as ARC2020 reported earlier in its TTIP coverage. Classified by some as a technical barrier to trade, the EU’s extensive register of geographical indications (GIs) has often been held up as an example of unfair practice by traders up and down north America. On February 29, the European Commission released a summary of the final text of the Comprehensive European Trade Agreement with Canada (CETA), which is widely regarded as a TTIP testbed. Had the details been in the public domain earlier in the negotiating process they would have sparked howls of protest: the current document, however, represents a fait accompli with a sting in the tail. There are over 1,400 EU geographical indications, many of them wines and spirits that were bundled into the existing EU-Canada Wines and Spirits Agreement, which […]
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